


Sugar

by Violetwilson



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Belligerent Sexual Tension, Bratty Rey, Daddy Kink, Dom/sub, Domestic Fluff, Dominant Ben Solo, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, No Pregnancy, Palpatine is Dead, Spanking, Suit Porn, Teasing, author has a coffee kink, getting dicked down instead of getting therapy, rey "satin nightgowns count as clothes right" palpatine, rich bastard kylo, sex while one person is having a phone call with someone else, soft fuckboi ben solo, weaponized pouting maneuvers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:42:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23578606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violetwilson/pseuds/Violetwilson
Summary: Palpatine is dead, and Rey can't bear to stay in her childhood home for one minute more than necessary. Crashing with her father's old business partner seems like a simple way to get out of the house. All it will cost her is a favor he owes her and a few weeks of sexual torment. Not a bad bargain, really.“You’re being irresponsible,” he says. “You don’t understand what you’re doing.”She crosses to him, letting the duvet slip down her shoulders, exposing her collar bones, her shoulders, the swell of her breasts.He scowls. “You tease at an Olympic level.”Rey comes up behind him and leans her face on the planes of his shoulders, letting the warmth of his body seep into her front.“I just want you to be sweet to me,” she whispers.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 492
Kudos: 1544





	1. Sad Girl

**Author's Note:**

> Experimenting with writing better smut, this story is the result of those efforts! It's a fun, low plot story. Thanks for joining me in indulging myself :D

When she arrives at his house, it’s raining. No one is standing on the wide marble steps to welcome her. She doubts he’s even home. Can’t be bothered to even receive her, which is so typical for him.

Cold hearted ass. 

Rey carries her bags into the house, marveling at the strangeness of being in this space like this. It’s broad daylight, empty, and there isn’t a string quartet playing in the corner. Nor is she in a gown that costs as much as an entry level sedan. Nor is her father hovering behind her, making her hold her breath in case does something foolish. 

No. Today, she’s alone, she’s carrying a suitcase, and her father is dead. 

Her footsteps in marble foyer are loud, even though she’s only wearing a pair of thin-soled sandals. For the first time, she’s coming to his house as her actual self. 

Ben once told her that he’d really only _bought_ this house for the purpose of entertaining. She’d called him a heartless bastard for that, and he hadn’t denied it. Just handed her another glass of wine. 

From the lofty foyer she walks the fancy living room, and then to the kitchen. Empty. If he’s home, he’s keeping his distance. Not hard to do in a space this size. 

So Rey shows herself to her usual room, and it is the same as it always is. Blandly luxurious with white carpet and a truly ridiculous arrangement of white orchids on a circular table. The bed is enormous and white, and the windows open out onto a view of the misty woods beyond.

When she sets her suitcase down on the long, tufted bench at the foot of the bed, she has the odd urge to burst into tears. 

Her father is dead. She honestly can’t believe it. A lifetime of conniving, conning and scheming and pancreatic _cancer_ was the thing that got him. It’s so hideously mundane that it still doesn’t feel real. As far as terminal illnesses go, it all went very fast. 

There’s a knock at the door, and Rey turns to see Armitage Hux standing there in his usual Tom Ford suit and bored expression. He’s Ben’s assistant, probably here to drop something, and while they’re not exactly friends, Rey always kind of liked Hux for his capacity for pointed, witty malice. But he doesn’t look sharp and gossipy today. There’s a Starbucks in his hand, and he looks very uncomfortable.

“Would it be ghoulish if I said it’s nice to see you?” Hux says. 

“Yeah.” She cracks an honest to god smile. “Hey, Armitage.”

He doesn’t smile. Hux _never_ smiles. 

But he sets the coffee on the table with the orchids and pushes it slightly in her direction. “It is a gingerbread latte,” he says, with great dignity. 

Rey brushes a tear back. “That’s my favorite.”

“Please don’t mention it,” Hux says, and leaves the way he came in. 

* * *

That night, Rey is sitting on Ben’s couch in the living room, an enormous TV in front of her as she tries to force her brain to engage with whatever dumb reality show is currently popular. 

She’s not watching it. Not really. Her brain is on autopilot, shifting blankly through thought after thought, touching nothing, engaging with nothing. Her silky pajama bottoms feel cold against the leather couch, and she has both of the fuzzy blankets draped over her body. 

Ben keeps his house _freezing_ cold, which makes sense, given that he’s a frigid guy in general. So she just sits there, looking but not really seeing, and buries herself into the white leather cushions and soft, expensive blankets that smell like a Pottery Barn, and tries not to think. 

A voice behind her surprises her. “That’ll rot your brain.”

Rey turns, craning her neck to look up and up and _up_ at the figure of Ben Solo standing at the edge of the room, still holding his briefcase. 

He hasn't changed. Still expensively dressed, still frowning, still as buttoned up as anyone she’s ever seen. He hasn’t even loosened his _tie._

“God you’re a judgmental bastard,” Rey says, her voice a little croaky. She hasn’t talked much, the past few weeks. All she’s done is sign papers and sleep. 

His eyes narrow. “Remind me again why I agreed to take you in?”

She gives him a ghost of the grin she used to give him, before. The one that said, _I know you, Ben Solo. And I know you’ll let me get away with whatever I want._

“Because I let you imply to my father that we were dating for years just to help you advance your business career.”

“Ah,” Ben says crisply. “That.”

Rey shifts, pushing the enormous, fluffy white blanket off her body to stretch out on the couch a little. “Want to join me, roommate?”

“You are my _guest_ ,” he says.

“Fine by me,” Rey says, sprawling even more just to piss him off. “If i’m your guest then I don’t have to do my own dishes.”

“You’re a terrible guest,” he corrects. But he brings a hand up and loosens his tie. “What show even is this?”

“It’s called Love is Blind,” Rey supplies, tucking her phone between the couch cushions. Ben gets pissy when she’s on her phone in front of him. He gets pissy about _everything_ where she’s concerned. 

He takes a few steps into the room, his eyes fixed on the television. “What’s the premise?”

Upon closer inspection, he looks a little older since she’s seen him last. Tired. 

“People fall in love with each other without seeing each other, and then they have to decide if they’ll get together for real or not.”

“Doesn’t sound like the foundation for a durable partnership,” he says. He puts a hand in his pocket, his eyes trained on the screen. Two of the contestants are staring at each other, saying sweet nothings. “They’ve barely met, haven’t they?”

Rey shrugs. “How long do you have to know someone to know that you love them, anyway?” 

His frown deepens. “A few years, I think. Before you really _know._ ”

Rey rolls her eyes and pats the seat next to her. “Come. Sit. We can watch something else. You like those shows on the History Channel about Egypt, right?” 

She’s already reaching for the enormous remote, which looks more like a tablet than a remote, really. Fumbling with it, she tries to figure out how to change the channel.

“Who even _has_ cable?” Rey says grouchily. Ben sits next to her, keeping a full five feet of distance. The couch is big enough that he can do that, which pisses her off a little. 

“I have cable because I enjoy access to such quality programming as-” and here he cuts off, watching as the channels flick though the pay per view porn channels as Rey tries to find the right one “-MILF Fuckers volume 17.” 

She throws a pillow at him, relieved to see that he’s smiling at her a little. He has this secretive little smile that she likes. It comes out on rare occasions, like the time he’d seen her lose a shoe at a corporate fundraiser or the time they both watched Pryde mispronounce the word “elucidate.” 

The channels flick by, counting down from 200. 194. 191. A blur of color and sound. Something in his stillness draws her notice. He doesn’t look comfortable, and for a minute she feels like a jerk. He took her in for the simple reason that he owes her a favor and she’s too much of a coward to face sleeping in her father's house one more night. 

“Thank you, by the way,” Rey murmurs. “For letting me stay here. I couldn’t… I couldn’t do it.” 

He keeps his gaze on the screen. “You’ll always have a place with me, if you need it.” 

Literally speaking, he’s right. They were always seated together at events. And even if they never talked about anything important, she still liked it. Even if he never seemed moved by her charms, he was always polite and solid, and his scary expression kept the business creeps from approaching her. But every subtle glance of her hand on his, every brushed finger tip seemed to totally glance off him.

It would have pissed her off if it wasn’t so fun. With Ben, she could try anything, say anything, and he’d always give her the same calm, cool smile, the same tolerant eyebrow raise. He was safe. 

Forcing herself to look back at the TV, she swallows down the lump on her throat as the numbers reach the 150s. When they reach the History Channel, Rey lets go of the remote and draws the blanket up closer around her shoulders as the image of a desert scene fills the screen.

Silence falls between them. 

Ben brings a hand up and loosens his tie a little further, exposing the top of his chest. In her peripherals, she takes in the great bulk of him, so solid and immovable. He’d always seemed so remote, even as he took her by the hands and led her in a dance, or sat next to her at dinner and smiled engagingly at the things she said.

In a way, she supposes that they were more colleagues than anything else. Rey, the token symbol of family life to be trotted out at events and then neglected, Ben the rising star using Palpatine to advance his own burgeoning career. 

And now they’re _both_ orphans, and that should bring them closer than ever, right? But sitting here like this, he couldn’t seem more remote to her. 

“Ben?” Rey says. 

“Yes?”

“Are you really okay with me staying here? I could go somewhere else.”

He glances over at her, his gaze flicking to her mouth for half a heartbeat. 

“No, you’ll stay with me,” he murmurs, turning back to the TV. “It’s appropriate.”

“Appropriate,” Rey repeats, arching a brow. 

He just shrugs. “We both inherited a small fortune. Neither of us deserve it. Neither of us know how to deal.” 

“I think we should deal by watching terrible television,” Rey says, putting her hand on the couch between them. 

He glances at it and looks right back at the TV. “Don’t be a brat.” 

“I’m not a brat,” she murmurs. 

“No, but you’re spoiled,” he says flatly. “You always were.” 

_Maybe materially_ , she wants to say. But she can’t talk about any of those feelings right now.

So Rey doesn’t overthink it, just follows the guidance of her instincts. Pushing the blanket off, she scoots closer to Ben. He goes stiff as a board as she comes within a hand’s width of him, and Rey hesitates. 

She wants to put her head on his shoulder, but she doesn’t want to ruin this. If she can only have him one way, then she’d prefer to keep his friendship. After all, he’s seen her at her _worst_ and still likes her. Someone like that is special. 

But he looks at her, his nostrils flaring, and jerks his head in a beckoning way. Rey obliges, crawling over to lean against his side with the blanket drawn tight around her shoulders again.

He doesn’t put his arm around her. He doesn’t say anything the rest of the program. Hell, she wonders if he even breathes, he’s _that_ still as she leans on him. But Rey breathes deeply, inhaling the sharp, crisp smell of him. The warmth of his body. The tense muscle of his upper arm.

Being next to someone else like this is a luxury. Close and safe and warm. 

By the time the show ends, Rey’s drifting off, her eyes closed, lulled on that good feeling. 

When Ben gets to his feet, she lets out a cry of protest as the source of warmth moves. He must’ve dimmed the lights at some point during the show, because the living room is soft and hazy, the dark sky outside spangly with stars. 

He lives further out in the country than she ever did. Benefits of the suburbs, she supposes. 

“Good night,” Ben says woodenly, walking for the door. 

Rey lifts a head, wanting him to stay but utterly lost for how to ask for something like that. 

* * *

The next day is Saturday, and Rey wakes up early. She always woke up early at home and went on a militant run, arriving back at the house in time to see her father in his study for their usual morning meeting.

But today… is empty.

Rey pads out of her room, her pink satin nightgown and fluffy slippers an odd, hyper feminine exclamation mark in this masculine space. 

The kitchen is … a mystifying expanse of hidden counters and concealed appliances. The house she’d been raised in was all garish Italianate decoration, loud and obvious.

Ben’s house acts like it’s trying to hide the fact that it has a kitchen in it at all. 

After ten minutes of opening cabinets hunting for some coffee-making apparatus, Ben appears. He’s dressed in dark pajama pants and a gray henley, unexpectedly tousled in the bright light.

“Need something?”

Rey grins at him sheepishly. “Coffee?”

He frowns. “I don’t drink coffee.”

Rey blinks at him. “Are you serious?”

“It’s bad for you.”

Two seconds of prickly silence pass, before Rey says, “Well, _I_ need coffee.”

Ben smirks. “Maybe this is a sign from the universe. Time to give it up.”

Putting both hands on the kitchen island and leaning across it slightly, she says, “Ben Solo, my only living parent died a week ago, my life is in chaos, I’m tired, and it’s _Saturday._ ”

That shuts him up, the smirky look vanishing to a careful blankness.

“Ah. I’ll get my keys.” 

Rey nods. “I’m coming too.”

He eyes her. “Are you wearing pants?” 

“No.”

“Put on some pants.”

“No.”

“No pants, no Starbucks.”

Rey rolls her eyes. “So bossy.”

But she walks around the island towards the stairs anyway, climbing them. He watches her ascend through the glass of the railing, his eyes fixed on her legs. It feels good, knowing he’s looking at her. And at this point, it’s a relief to feel anything. 

Ben makes her feel something good.

Ten minutes later and she’s dressed in a tank top and yoga pants, her hair pulled back into a bun and a pair of enormous sunglasses hiding her dark circles as she walks out the front door towards Ben’s idling Porsche. 

“Of course you drive a Porsche,” she grumbles, opening the handle of the sleek two door coupe without further grumbling. 

“Seatbelt,” he says firmly, not even _looking_ at her as she starts to fiddle with the climate controls and the seat warmer. Rolling her eyes – she was _going_ to put it on– she clicks her seatbelt in, and then they’re off.

Ben drives fast, but carefully. The long winding driveway that twines through the woods has many satisfying curves that he takes hard and fast, making Rey giggle a little as her stomach lurches pleasantly.

He even smiles at her as she rolls down her window and lets the spring air brush through her open palms, and he doesn’t object even though the air is cold. He just turns her seat warmer up for her.

By the time they get to the Starbucks, Rey even feels good. A little. Ben opts for the drive through rather than going inside, and she relaxes in the seat as he puts in an order for two iced lattes, one vanilla and one ginger bread, and then (after eyeing her askance) a cake pop. 

Rey arches a brow when they’re done ordering, but before she can ask him about it he pulls his phone out and immediately makes a call. 

He’s saying something to his assistant, and Rey lets her mind wander as the wash of his talk drifts over her. His business reminds Rey of her own. God, she’s got so much to do. There are so many damn lawyers, so many things to make decisions about. 

She’s going to sell the house, divest of any stocks invested in fossil fuels, figure out what she’s supposed to do with the company. The board will be voting on a new CEO. The idea gives her a migraine. They’ll want her to give a speech at the after party. 

By the time they reach the pickup window, Ben’s still on the phone and her mood has soured even further. Ben pays. Why does _that_ piss her off? He’s being nice. 

When the window opens again and the barista holds their drinks out, Ben lowers his window, but Rey unbuckles, leaning over to reach out and take the drinks for him so he doesn’t have to stop his call. 

In the process she ends up halfway in his lap. Ben puts a steadying hand on her back, his tone faltering as he registers this unexpected state of things. 

He goes silent on the line, whatever he was saying stalling out into silence, and Rey realizes that underneath the softness of his sweater is something that is definitely _not soft_.

“-uh, the KPIs- they’re poorly defined-” he stumbles as Rey slides back into her own seat without spilling so much as a drop of the coffee. She puts the tray of drinks in her lap, holding it firmly and looking straight ahead. 

But Ben only turns his eyes onto the road again as they make for home. He resumes his call, his phone pressed to one ear and his hand on the wheel. 

He looks so confident. So self-assured. So calm. 

But she’d felt it. Had felt _him._ He looks the same as always. Serious and direct and unamused. Rey picks up her iced latte and sticks it with the straw, the plastic protesting creakily as she sticks the straw in and sits to mix up the caramel, coffee, and milk.

When she puts her mouth on the straw, she looks over at him again. His eyes are still on the road, but as she sucks on the coffee, she sees him clench his jaw. 

The two facts connect and Rey has to turn her eyes out the opposite window so that she doesn't betray the giddy, pleased feeling in her chest.

Stoic, unmovable Ben Solo is flying at half-mast for her over the brush of her forearm and the image of her drinking from a goddamn straw.

She could preen, she's so pleased with herself. With a little smirk, she pulls out the cake pop and puts the _whole_ thing in her mouth and looks at him with the stick jutting out of one lip. 

He grips the steering wheel so hard his knuckles go white.

By the time they get back to the house, there’s a box on the foyer. It’s a coffee machine, one of the nice ones with the different temperature settings and the organic filters. Next to it, a basket with five types of coffee in it.

Before she can even turn to thank him, Ben is already striding for his study.

* * *

After a long day of watching K-dramas in bed, Rey notices the return of darkness outside her window and imagines this is how a bug must feel when it gets on a plane and flies out in a whole different country. 

Stretching, she reaches for her favorite silk bathrobe and shoves her arms through, not wanting to entirely _scandalize_ Ben with her favorite lounge set. 

But when she descends the grand stairs, the house is utterly silent. She pads on slippered feet through the dark, stark space, the air humming with the sound of air conditioning.

The master bedroom is on the first floor, and when she reaches the heavy, wood door that opens into his room, she knocks. 

“Ben?” 

No answer. Rey pulls the door open and peers inside. The room is structural, white sheets and a low profile bed with a marble headboard and two lamps emitting a cool white light in shallow pools on the floor.

Rey shivers, eyeing the heavy weight of his coverlet. 

“Ben?” she whispers. 

If he left for the night, would she know? Would she have any right to know? He could have someone else somewhere, someone he loves. Rey walks over to his bed and sits on it, and the softness of his blankets feels almost _obscene._

She groans a little at the feel of it on her bare legs and flops back, drawing the softness up and into her arms like she’s in a leaf pile made of Egyptian cotton. 

She doesn’t even care if Ben catches her here. She’s inhaling deeply, letting that same smell of him fill her lungs. It feels … good. God, she wants to feel good again.

When the door opens, she looks up from the pile of his blankets to see him standing there at the door, dressed casually in dark jeans and a white shirt. His feet are bare, and he just stands in the doorway looking at her. His nostrils flare and he looks… some combination of furious and thunderstruck.

“Jesus, it’s like living with a _cat,_ ” he grumbles. 

Rey gives him a grin. “I couldn’t find you.”

He rubs the bridge of his nose, sighs, and then paces into the room. He doesn’t look at her, just strides for his bathroom. When he flicks the light on, it sends a long rectangle of light into the room. 

Rey grabs his duvet and pulls it around her shoulders, wrapping her arms up in it like an enormous shawl. Satisfied and _drowning_ in blankets, she walks like some kind of fuzzy swamp creature for the bathroom.

His back is to her, and he’s got the button down off. “Rey,” he says, not turning around. He grabs for a soft cotton t-shirt and tugs it over his his head. “Go back to your room.”

“Sending me to bed without supper?” Rey says, leaning against the counter.

“No, it’s-” he turns around and catches sight of her. His lips twitch. “You look like a snowman.”

“Snowcat,” she corrects, drawing the duvet closer. It swamps her whole body like this. “I like your duvet. Can I have it?” 

“You have a duvet.”

She’s baiting him. She _knows_ she’s baiting him, but it’s like she can’t help it. She wants to be near him, to annoy him, to rile him up, because getting to him feels real and good. 

“This one is better,” she says. 

“Better how, snowcat?” he says, exasperated as he walks out of his closet and towards the sink. He grabs a washcloth and begins to wash his face, scrubbing with what looks like somewhat excessive force. 

“Because this one smells like you,” she says. 

Ben sets the washcloth down and looks at her in the mirror, his expression flat and tense. Is he as knotted up as she feels? Does he know that she’s flirting with him? Or is he just a scary bastard who needs a hobby? 

Either way, she’s playing with fire.

When he turns around, his breathing is coming a little faster. 

“You’re playing on my sympathies because you’re bereaved.”

Rey arches a brow. “Is that wrong?”

When he crosses to her, she has exactly one second to appreciate just how _fast_ he is capable of crossing distances on those long legs of his, and then he’s standing in front of her, his big hands gripping the sides of his duvet. 

He doesn’t pull on it, he just stands there, breathing hard. Touching her, but not touching her. She stares up at him, wanting to be kissed so badly she can barely _breathe._

“Are you wearing pajamas, under this?” he whispers. 

“Don’t you want to find out for yourself?” 

He closes his eyes. Triumph flares in her chest. 

But then he _drops his hands._ Rey could stamp her foot, could pout or cry at how badly she wanted him to pull the covers off her, to expose her body to him. 

“Keep the duvet,” he says gruffly. “And get out.” 

“Why?” she says, stunned and disappointed and annoyed as he walks away from her, back to the sink. 

“Because you’re being irresponsible,” he says. “You don’t understand what you’re doing.”

She crosses to him, letting the duvet slip down her shoulders, exposing her collar bones, her shoulders, the swell of her breasts. 

“You always knew how to tease me,” he says, scowling as he starts to wash his hands. “You tease at an Olympic level.”

Rey comes up behind him and leans her face on the planes of his shoulders, letting the warmth of his body seep into her front. 

“I just want you to be sweet to me,” she whispers.

His hands still, and they’re just frozen like that. Him with his hands in the water, her with her cheek pressed against his back. With a precise jerk, he turns the water off and looks up at the ceiling. 

“I can’t be sweet to you, Rey.”

“Why not?”

“Because what I _want_ is to put you over my knee for being so- for being so fucking tempting when I’m trying to give you space-”

She slinks her hands up his back, wrapping them around his chest and interlacing them just above his navel as his words fill her with a haze of desire. 

“Christ,” he hisses, as she starts nuzzling her cheek against his back. “Rey, please.” 

His voice breaks in the middle, like he’s so close to giving into it.

“My nightgown is pink,” she whispers. “And very thin. You could tear it off me. I’d let you.”

He hunches over a little, and Rey is all but draping herself on him now, loving the way it feels just to touch him, to get the feel of his hard body along the entire length of hers.

“You’re hurting, Rey. I can’t give you this. Even if I-” and he cuts off. 

She could cry at the grim determination in his voice. It’s not just that she wants to kiss him- it’s everything. She’s grieving, he’s right. But she doesn’t know how to grieve, and it’s coming out as a desperate, urgent need for Ben Solo to quit holding out on her. She always wanted him. Now she _needs_ him. 

“I want you to make me feel something,” she whispers, her voice thick. “Nobody else can give me this. Nobody but you.”

He groans, and when he straightens up it’s so abrupt that she almost falls over. Except she doesn’t, because he catches her, his body turning to presses her against him, drawing her up in a rough, urgent grip. The contact is exquisite, and his hands are so big as he grips her. His face is pressed into the crook of her neck, and he inhales greedily, smelling her.

“So sweet,” he mumbles, kissing her neck, breathing heavily. She feels antsy and wet just from _that,_ and she can feel how hard he is against her. Is it supposed to feel like this? Immediate and desperate? And... large? 

Rey lets her knees slacken, knowing he’s holding her up. Her eyes mist with tears, because it feels so good, and she _wants_ this. 

He's kissing his way up her neck now, moving up, mumbling, “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” as Rey’s toes curl and her hands fist in his shirt and she squeezes her thighs together. 

She gets her hands in his hair and he lifts his head to look into her eyes.

His lips part, and he inhales sharply as he sees the tears. When he goes rigid and closes his eyes, panic fills her. He's pulling away, he's going to _deny_ her now when she needs him the most, because he is a cold, cruel man. 

“Ben?” 

He’s disentangling their bodies, setting her down on the ground.

 _No. No. No._

"Ben," she pleads, trying to hold onto him, mewling the word like a small, pathetic animal. 

And then he sets his jaw and walks out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to support my writing, I'd really appreciate a comment or a kudos! Check out [my Twitter account](https://twitter.com/ViWiWrites) for star wars content, memes, and fic updates.


	2. Off to the Races

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY EASTER, MY FELLOW SINNERS. JESUS, BABE, THIS ONE'S FOR YOU. CONGRATS ON YOUR COMING OUT PARTY.
> 
> Also if you haven't checked the tags, please check the tags! We get into explicit content here.

**TWO**

She doesn’t see him for days. 

> **_Unexpected work trip. Back in a few days. Be good._**

That’s the text he sends her. One lousy, inadequate text that she reads again and again, trying to pick out if it’s angry? Tense? Just… disinterested? When she replies back with a big-eyed frowning face, he leaves her on read. 

She’s so pissed off about that that she immediately goes to his closet, opens all the drawers, and steals his clothes.

He has an obscene amount of thick, warm sweaters and those good, thin t-shirts that feel weightless on her shoulders. A few of them are vintage, and she stages a photoshoot on the stairs with her iPhone. 

Photos of herself with her feet up, showing a _lot_ of thigh. But then she deletes them without sending them to him, because… well, she’s embarrassed. Maybe he doesn’t want her after all. He certainly doesn’t deserve a naughty pic after he left her hanging like that. 

But worse than that is how much she _misses_ him. She’s not doing anything except take occasional calls from her lawyers, reviewing documents, and trying to figure out what she’s going to do with her life now that her role is no longer confined to “trophy daughter.” 

It’s lonely. She’d like to see him. So she goes and sits on his bed during the days, kicking her feet up and sprawling over the sheets, forbidding anyone from washing them because she just likes the way it smells like him. 

The day she decides to call him, she’s alone in his bed, reviewing a contract that confuses her. He’d always said she could call him about stuff like that, so she just picks up her phone and.... calls him. 

It rings four, five, six times, and just when she thinks he’s not going to answer, he picks up.

“Rey,” he says, his voice growly and quiet. 

Relief flows through her. She hadn’t realized how badly she wanted to hear him, how afraid she was that he might not answer.

“Hi,” she says. 

There’s a muffled sound at the other end of the line. And then he says, “Is something wrong?” 

Of course something’s wrong. Everything is wrong. 

But instead of saying that, she picks up the document and says, “I don’t understand this thing my lawyer wants me to sign.”

Instantly, he’s all business. 

“What document is it? Who sent it to you?”

“An affidavit of Inheritance,” she says, flipping the piece of paper over. “Apparently I now own seven British race cars?”

Ben makes a low sound, and it takes her a minute to realize that he’s chuckling. “Wow. I’m sure that will be very useful to you.”

“Come back, and I’ll take you out in one,” she says. “If you’re good.”

A brief pause. A hard swallow. And then— 

“Have you been behaving yourself?”

Rey lays back on his bed, relaxing. “Oh, definitely not. I’ve committed all sorts of crimes.”

“Such as?”

“Oh, you know. Arson. Loitering. Tax fraud. Stealing your shirts. Walking naked around the house.” Another long silence. Rey decides that she is going to go for the kill. “I’m in your bed right now, for the record.”

“Right now?”

“Right now,” she says breezily, kicking her foot up and resting it lazily on top of the other. She feels so _powerful_ like this. 

“Are you—” he cuts off. “Are you wearing my shirt?” 

She looks down at the soft gray henley and grins, though he can’t see that.

“You’d know the answer to that question if you hadn’t run off and left me without so much as a goodbye kiss,” she says, her voice a little harder. Maybe she’s more upset about that than she thought. 

She hears the sharp breath. A muffled curse. The sound of a door shutting.

“Rey,” he says, his voice low and warning. “I don’t think—”

“You shouldn’t have left me,” Rey says. “That night. You shouldn’t have left me standing there. I wanted you.” 

His voice is unsteady. “You were so vulnerable, Rey. I couldn’t.”

“I wanted you _before_ that night, too. I wanted you always,” she says. It’s almost a whine _._

“Christ, Rey, you were so young. You were so damn young.”

“I was _twenty_ when we met.”

“Yes, and I was 27,” he says, very calmly. “I couldn’t have— it wouldn’t have been right.”

“Don’t pretend like you’re a nice man,” she says, gripping the phone. She squeezes her thighs together, because even just this sends heat coiling up in her body. “Don’t pretend like you care about virtue. I’ve heard you talking about those clubs with Hux.”

“ _Je_ sus,” he thunders, cutting her off. “That’s— that was never for _you._ ”

“Why not? I’m twenty four, Ben, don’t be patronizing. I’m an adult. I can look after myself.” 

“If I had you— if I gave you what you’re asking for,” he says, and his voice is very low, “I would be worse than patronizing. I would be controlling and jealous. I would tie you up and keep you in my bed for days. Rey, kitten, you’re the most fidgety, difficult person I’ve ever met. We can’t.” 

“Maybe I need that,” she says, impulsive and honest, her voice breaking a little, her hand fisting at the apex of her thighs as the tension in her body melts with the bone-deep desire she’s feeling. “Maybe for once in my life I want someone to care about me enough to _stop_ me.” 

He makes a low, tortured sound, part guilt, part raw need. “Rey. I’m going to hang up.” 

“Don’t,” she says, almost crying, mewling with need. 

“For my own sanity—”

She blurts it out.

“I’m _only_ wearing your shirt, Ben.” Silence. He doesn’t hang up. “I’m not wearing any panties, just your shirt, and I’m laying on your bed—”

“Christ,” he groans. She hears a heavy sound. Like he’s sitting down. 

“Where are you?” Rey whispers. “Come back. I want you.”

It’s clumsy, she knows it, but he’s making this so damn hard. She brings her fingers between her thighs and begins a slow, steady stroke. 

Assessing. She’s never done anything over the phone, but the sound of his voice just _does_ it for her. 

“Ben,” she whispers, breathy already. “Ben, I’m so wet.”

“Rey, listen to me,” he says, harsh and urgent. “Don’t touch yourself.”

That gets her attention. She ignores the instruction, because she can. “ _Why_ would I do that?”

His voice is ragged. “Because I fucking told you to.”

“But—”

“You want me to come home and fuck you?”

“Yes,” she croons, still touching herself. Needy, so needy. 

“You want me to give you some fucking _boundaries?_ ” 

God, he sounds so different, raw and elemental. It makes something in her ache and her fingers work faster because she can’t _help_ it. Imagining him, sitting in an office chair somewhere in one of those stupid lovely suits, completely focused on her— it’s too much. Are there people in the other room? Did he get up and leave them just to talk to her?

No one else ever made her feel like that. 

“Yes, Ben, please.” 

“Then get your fingers out of your cunt.” 

It’s shocking, harsh and very different from the cold, even tone she’s used to. 

“But, _Ben,_ ” she whines, startled into temporary obedience.

“Be good. Or I won’t touch you. Not tomorrow, not any day.”

“I don’t believe you,” she whispers.

“For years you’ve just been— you’ve been barging all over me in your little dresses with your goddamn vanilla perfume and your perky tits. You want this? It’s on my terms, Rey.” 

“You know what I think?” Rey gasps, scrunching up her nose and folding her knees together, letting herself rub faster, feeling her chest constrict and her fingers clench at the fabric of the bed,. “I think you left me here by myself, and there’s—” she cuts off, a spasm of pleasure running through her. “—there’s nothing you can do to stop me from—” 

She stops there, embarrassed, turned on to the point of disbelief, at the edge of something huge and pleasant. His voice is very, very low. Dangerous. And that only makes the wanting, hot feeling worse. 

“Rey, sweetness, I’m going to be generous with you, given the circumstances. I’m _not_ going to drive home right now and turn your ass pink.” Her toes clench. She _knew_ it. Knew he’d be like this. “I’m going to let you spend the night alone, with your hands above the covers like a good girl, because this is a strange time.”

Rey whimpers a choked sound, moving her fingers faster. Her breathing is more of a pant than anything else.

“S-so close,” she mumbles.

“Rey, pet, do you know what happens to girls who don’t listen?”

She moans, wondering dizzily just how far she can take this, how far away she is from pissing him off to the point of no return. 

“They make the grouchy bastards ordering them around really hard?” 

Now it’s his turn to groan, a hissed stutter through his teeth. 

“Are you touching yourself?” Rey says, imagining him splayed back. Imaging the way his dick would look in his hands, how big it must be, the way he must be picturing her, too. “Are you imagining me? Laid out on your bed, my hand between my legs, flushed and wet?”

“Rey, fuck—” he grunts. “Do you get off on disobeying me?”

The knowledge that she’s doing this to him is so _hot._

“You could’ve had this,” Rey gasps. “That night. You could have bent me over the counter and taken me right there, I was so ready for you.”

A muffled expletive. 

Her hands move faster, her toes twitching as her orgasm draws closer. She feels like a small woodland animal, almost predatory in her need to make a mess of his sheets, to get her scent all over his stuff, to make sure that he can never get into his own bed without thinking of her again.

“You were so sweet—” he says, grunting. “So open, so needy. Rey, sweetheart, I’m _sorry_.”

“But you left me all alone,” Rey whispers, grinning as she twists the knife, thrilling in her own body because she _does_ get off on disobeying him. “And now I have to see to myself.”

His voice is a rasp. “Rey— god you’re such a bad girl—” She whines, so close, _so_ close. He barks out an order, his own voice unsteady. “Think of me. Think of _me_ when you come.”

It hits her then, hot and hard and immediate, the possessiveness of it sharpening everything to a delirious point. For once in her life, Rey does exactly what Ben Solo tells her. 

She whines, twisting, desperate for something inside her, something she could tense around, something she could grip. For Ben’s fingers. For Ben’s cock. But the orgasm hits her anyway, and she moans, boneless and relaxed on his bed with her fingers going still. 

She pants, blissed out, totally at peace for the first time in days. 

“Rey?” he says. 

“Hmm?” 

“Listen to me,” he starts to say. 

She hangs up. Because leaving him hanging on the other end of the line, pent up unfulfilled, feels like justice. But as she buries herself in his covers, ignoring the sticky throbbing between her legs, it feels a little like loneliness, too. 

* * *

When she wakes up, it’s to the sound of the door opening. Instantly alert, she sits up, clutching the sheet to her chest, reaching for something— anything— to use as a weapon.

“Shh,” comes Ben’s voice from the darkness. 

She relaxes, slumping back onto the bed with a short puff of air. And then she really registers that it’s Ben. Back early. 

“Thought you weren’t coming back till tomorrow?” she mumbles, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. 

“Something came up at home,” he says, his voice very quiet. “Something I had to deal with.” 

As her eyes adjust, she can see him better. He’s just standing a few feet away, one hand still on the door, like he’s afraid to come into his own bedroom. Idly, she wonders if he’s afraid to see her. Maybe she ruined some image he had of her, some ideal of a pure, sexless girl. 

Rey glances down at herself. The thin t-shirt, the white duvet, the slant of moonlight striping across the white floor. But he hadn’t seemed like he minded losing that particular illusion when he’d grunted her name into the phone earlier. The memory makes her pulse tick a little faster. 

She blinks at him, waiting for him to move. “Want me to go?”

It is _his_ bed, after all.

“No,” he says. But he doesn’t look happy to see her there. Looking at his shadow filling the doorway, Rey decides that she won’t give him the chance to turn her down in person twice. It would be too humiliating, too much. She shifts, putting her feet on the ground.

“I said no,” he says, his voice thick, and Rey freezes at the command, her heart stuttering as she registers the change in the room. The way something in her is responding to just the idea of him and his displeasure. 

“Did you miss me?” she whispers, hoping to god she’s making it worse. 

“Yes,” he rasps. 

Ignoring the urge to wrap the duvet around herself and hide, she gives him her most playful smile. “Me and my perky tits and my vanilla perfume?” 

Ben’s voice is not playful. It’s low and gravelly and _different._ Quiet the way a knife is quiet. Quiet like something waiting in the dark. _You’re in trouble_ , a voice whispers gleefully in her ear. _You’re in trouble now_. 

“What did you think was going to happen, Rey?” 

Then he takes a step into the room and Rey reassesses everything at the look in his eyes. He looks _pissed._

Maybe she’d overstepped. It’s his bed, after all. She has to respect that. Well, at least now that he’s _standing_ here she does. So she gets to her feet a little uneasily, padding around the bed. The shirt comes to the middle of her thighs, and it moves against her skin little as she walks. That sensation hadn’t ever really felt erotic to her before, but now it does.

When she gets within a few feet of the door, she comes to a stop, because he’s blocking it with his massive body, his posture rigid. Rey inhales sharply, tilting her face up, desperate and keyed up and sleepy. 

“You came back for _me,_ didn’t you?” 

He’s so solid there, blocking her way, immovable as iron. She reaches a hand out to touch him, letting her fingers gently graze the firm muscles of his pectorals through his shirt. She’s never touched him like this before.

He inhales sharply, and she pulls her hand back as if burned. But before she can let it fall to her side, he grabs it in his, tugging her forward and wrapping his arms around her.

At first she thinks he’s hugging her, because his hands go all the way around her, squeezing her tightly. And then she realizes that he’s lifting her off her feet with her arms pinned at her side so she can’t fight, and her heart starts to hammer in her throat as he carries her, squirming and giddy, back to bed. 

“I warned you,” he says, tossing her onto the bed. She looks up, brushing her hair out of her face as he towers over her, loosening his tie with one hand and leaning down to grip her by her ankle with the other. 

When he closes his hand around her foot, he pulls hard and fast, yanking her forward so that her back slides across the fabric, making her gasp. Disoriented, she tries to sit up, but he abruptly lowers himself onto the bed, on his knees on the mattress and looking down at her from what seems a _million_ feet away even though he’s so close. 

“Do you remember the first time we met?” he says, his voice low and dangerous.

“No,” Rey admits, her heart in her throat. 

He lowers himself down, crawling over to her until his body hovers over hers. Not touching her, just waiting there. Instinctively, she holds very still, not squirming, not teasing, just listening. 

“Your father brought you to dinner at the country club. You had on this white dress. You had a flower in your hair, and your father told me to look after you.”

“Oh,” Rey says, startled to hear mention of her father at a time like this. 

“And you looked at me, smiled, and said that you hoped we would be _friends_ ,” he murmurs, low and controlled and almost-but-not-quite mocking her. 

“You have a good memory.” 

“I remember everything about you,” Ben says. “Every minute, every conversation, every joke, every time you brushed your hand against mine, every time you tugged your neckline down when you thought I wouldn’t notice.” 

Rey stares, stunned, delighted, afraid, and so turned on she can hardly breathe. Every part of her feels so sensitive, keyed up to a point that she didn’t know was possible. 

He brings a hand up to cup her cheek, still caging her against the mattress. “And now I get to have the sound of you reaching a climax in _my goddamn_ _bed_ etched into my brain for the rest of my life.”

She swallows. “Oh.”

“How do you think that makes me feel, Rey?”

He looks angry. He looks turned on. She doesn’t have the right word, and anyway, she doesn’t want to talk. Holding his gaze, she reaches her hand up and goes for his belt, fumbling with the metal, wanting to get _at_ him.

When she touches him he groans, and then immediately pins her hand down at her side. He’d been hard, though. She could feel it. God, she wants to please him. If she can please him, it will feel like pleasing herself, she thinks, to be the source of him coming undone at the seams.

“Let me touch you,” Rey begs. 

“You’re going to need to do better than that, sweetheart,” he hisses. “After all you’ve made me suffer? If you want this,” he says, and he lowers himself onto her, grinding the hardness of his cock against her in a way that makes her moan pitifully, “You have to earn it.” 

She lifts her hips, partly trying to be good, but mostly trying to get what she wants. 

“What are you going to do, pet?” he murmurs, dipping his head, nipping the skin of her neck as he lets out a low, satisfied growl. “I’m twice your size, you’re in my bed, and I’ve been turned on for three days. I’m so—” and here his voice breaks and his body stills, just for a minute. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

Rey presses that opening, that moment of tenderness to lean up and press a hot, desperate kiss against his mouth.

Their first. 

A year ago, Ben been driving her home from a party a little early (they _always_ sent her home early), and she’d looked at his face in profile as he parked, watching him adjust the shifter and turn off the lights. She’d kissed him on his cheek, just for the sheer joy of it, and he’d given her a look of such frustrated exasperation and told her, “Don’t push it, sweetness.”

But at this moment? She _pushes_ it, lifting her body, getting her free hand around his neck, all but biting his lips in her enthusiasm to touch him.

He grunts, his hips spasming against her as his body lowers even further, crushing her until he abruptly rolls them both over so she’s on top. She _likes_ this, likes the way she can lean down, gripping his face with her hands as he slides his fingers up the back of her makeshift dress, tugging it off as she obediently lifts her arms, nudging the blunt ridge of his cock against her as she leaks all over the front of his pants. 

“So good,” she hisses, rocking her hips, so desperate for him to touch her, so high on the feeling of being out of control, in charge, getting exactly what she wants. 

“Do you want to come?” he says, his voice thick as he holds her hips, helping her steady herself. 

“Yes,” she pants, rocking back and forth. He puts a hand on her then, moving it up her inner thigh until he reaches her sex and starts to touch her there, too. His fingers are so large, and she lifts herself a little, giving him access, wanting him to give her something to grip, something to crush.

“Poor little thing,” he murmurs. And then, without warning, snakes his hand around to brings his it down on her ass in a sharp, shocking slap in the dark air. She squeaks, not really in pain, just in surprise, and pitches forward slightly as a gentle heat slowly spreads to replace the light sting.

She comes to rest on his shoulder as he sits up, supporting her body with one arm around her waist as he hits her again, the sound harsh and discordant in the silence. She yelps, and this time her fingers dig into his shoulders.

“Take off my shirt,” he says. “Little _thief._ ”

It’s like she can’t obey him fast enough. She tugs it up over her head, and it pulls on her hair as she flings it across the room.

He looks at her, perched in his lap, wetter than she’s ever been in her life over some friction and a _kiss_ , and smiles. It’s so unfair; she’s naked, and he’s fully clothed, and she’s never felt so achingly vulnerable around him.

“Now you take your shirt off,” she says, her hands going to his neck, but he brushes her off. 

“What kind of man would I be if rewarded bad behavior?” he says, in a murmur that gives her goosebumps. And then he jerks his hips and sends her whimpering all over again as the friction kicks back up, making her want to writhe and whine in his lap.

“A good man,” she whimpers. “A big, good man.”

He lifts a hand, dragging his fingers across her face. She catches a finger in her mouth, sucking the digit into her mouth, trying to tell him just how badly she wants him without saying as much. That if he doesn’t touch her more, soon, she might combust. 

He looks at her then, his body stilling, his voice going very low. “Say I’m the only one.”

“You’re the only one,” she whispers immediately, sweet and obliging, kissing his fingers now, rubbing her face against his knuckles. His hands turn hard, gripping her by the chin, forcing her to go still. 

“Hold _still,_ ” he says. “You look at me when you’re talking to me, you understand?”

“Yes,” she gasps, struggling a little. She wants to listen to him but even more than that, she wants to wriggle and move.

He grips her tighter. “Yes _sir._ ”

“Yes, sir, yes _sir,_ please,” she gasps, as he ruts his hips against her, and this time the friction is just right, getting the angle perfect so the jut of his cock grinds against her clit.

“I can give you this,” he says, and he sounds almost reverent as she keens. “This is the _one_ thing you only get from me, you understand?” 

“Yes, yes,” she says. Breathless with an ache that she’s always felt somewhere deep in her chest when she’s with him, now clawing its way to the surface. 

His hand goes to his zipper and when she hears the metal sound of his fly coming undone she’s so relieved she could almost cry. He frees himself, not even bothering to take his pants off, and before she can touch him he tosses her onto the bed, whisking her over so she’s on her back looking up at him. She sinks a little into the soft covers and it’s like she’s surrounded on all sides, cocooned in his scent. 

He’s still in his suit jacket, and his eyes are liquid as he looms over her. His cock is bigger than she thought, and her eyes go wide as she imagines him putting that inside her. It should frighten her. Hell, he’s frightening. Cold, controlled Ben Solo seems nearly unhinged, his breath coming hard, his expression almost cruel in its intensity as he lines himself up with her entrance and stares into her eyes. 

But even so. He has his hands on her hips, grounding her, holding her steady. She could push away from him. Or she could do her damndest to get as close to him as she can. And if she’s honest, the fear is dancing on a knife’s edge with desire, as much the core of the fire in her belly as anything soft and sweet. 

She arches. 

He chuckles, low and pleased and smug as hell, and it kind of makes her want to kiss him again just to stop that awful self-satisfied tone in his voice when he says, “Sweetness, what do you say?”

She blinks, confused in her haze of lust. “Thank you?”

He smiles, and not a nice smile as he begins to run the tip of his cock against her in a teasing, torturous movement. Her thighs twitch, heels sliding against the soft covers, looking for purchase. 

“No,” he says. “Try again.”

She tries to sit up, wanting to take control of this situation again, but he just pushes her back down, grinning, loving this. 

“Try _again,_ pet,” he says. 

She could scream, but she doesn’t. He’d like that too much. But then, she wants to be here, doesn’t she? For all the struggle, for all the fighting, he’s going to make her own up to how badly she wanted him to dominate her like this. To make her beg and cry and feel all of it with nowhere to go, no one to cling to but him. 

She tries again, “Please?”

He pushes into her, slow and careful and big, but stops after just a second. His eyes hold hers, his breathing is coming fast. 

“Say it again,” he says, his voice ragged. 

She twitches, the beginnings of fullness so damn _satisfying._ But he’ll give in. He can’t just sit there, nudged inside of her. No man has self-control like that, and she knows that Ben is at the precipice of something, can practically feel the hammering of his heart. No way is he going to have the self-control to just—-

He pulls out, his eyes narrowed. “Ungrateful thing. Can’t even say please,” he murmurs, lifting a hand to run up her navel. “I should leave you here, naked and pent up without—”

She grabs his hand. “Ben, please,” she gasps raggedly, the desperation in her voice surprising even her. It’s more than the sex. It’s... it’s everything. The wanting and the pain and the goodness, all tangled together into a longing, shivery concentration of _want_. There’s an ache inside her and if he would just do this for her, she will say _anything_ to please him.

“Please, oh please, sir, please,” she babbles, past the point of caring, peering up at him, hoping he can see the desperation in the slant of her mouth, the arch of her neck. “I’m sorry, I’ll be good.”

“You will be good,” he murmurs. “You’ll be so good for me and come all over my dick, won’t you sweetness?”

A rush of heat floods through her and she fists her hands in the expensive soft fabric of his shirt. “Yes, please, please.,” she whines. 

“Shh,” he says, hushing her, lowering himself back down as he lines himself up and begins to push in again, slow and controlled. “Let daddy give you what you need.”

The whispered words are like a shot of liquor; she feels drunk, slipping into a floaty, weightless space, only grounded by the way that he’s splitting her open. She whimpers at the feeling, thighs tensing around his hips, and he groans so loudly that she feels the vibration of it in her chest.

“Thank you, thank you,” she chants plaintively, and if she weren’t so focused she might dwell on the strange, kittenish tone of her voice. 

“God, sweetheart, you feel like—” and he cuts off as he sinks deeper, making her arch her back, giving her time to get used to him. There’s still the faintest sting from where he spanked her and remembering it makes her flush with arousal all over again, body softening under him. He rests his head against hers, breathing hard. 

She’s crying again. It’s unbearably loud in the silence of his room. “Don’t let me go, don’t stop holding me, don’t stop,” she begs. 

He bottoms out with a little cry and they both just take a shocked second to feel it. Dizzily, she thinks of how many years she’s longed for this. Did she ever really think she could have it? It’s hard to say as her brain fizzes and sparks as the pleasure ripples through her. 

“So good,” he grunts, barely coherent. And then he withdraws, slow and agonizing as he grips her with bruising strength. “My pretty girl.”

She’ll be his pretty anything, his bad whatever, his darling problem, she doesn’t _care._ “Fuck.”

“Yes,” he says, completing the thought and pushing back into her. Then he starts to move, and she’s helpless, lost, totally adrift as his cock pushes in and out, rocking her whole body with his force as she clings to him desperately. It’s suffocating, being trapped under his weight, in the best possible way, in a way that makes her feel trapped and safe all at once.

He picks up speed, and she brings a hand down and rubs her clit as the tandem motion of their bodies rocks a thrumming pleasure through her that feels like wholeness, like safety, like health. Her knuckles keep brushing against the soft skin of his stomach and she wonders what it would feel like to do this with their skin bare and touching. With the heat of his body against her. 

Then he bites her shoulder, his teeth marking, his mouth sucking as he moans into her something incoherent and possessive, and she loses the will to wonder about anything at all.

“Nobody else,” he grunts, slamming into her now. 

“Yes, please, yes,” she gasps.

Her words make him shudder. “I’m going to cum,” he groans. “I’m going to cum all over your tits.” 

The suggestion sends a frisson of panic through her. “No—, come inside me.”

“I don’t know,” he grunts, nuzzling against her ear with the curve of his nose. “That’s for good girls.”

“I’m g-good,” she gasps, feeling something start to happen to her as he reaches a little deeper and shifts his angle. It fizzes at the edge of her mind, swelling in strength as her fingers slip to her clit. 

“You’re not good,” he growls. “You need—” 

Rey shifts her hips a little, just to fix the angle, just to get it just _right._ It’s so close to perfect that she could wail.

And then she _does_ wail. 

“Ben, give me this, I need this.”

“Say it,” he grunts. “Say please, baby.”

“Please, sir, please come, please give me this,” she babbles, incoherent, caring about nothing other than how good he’s making her feel. Good all the way down, good deep and long and hard, good like there will be no coming back from this.

“Fuck,” he grunts, burying himself in her with a groan, clutching her so tightly that she can barely breathe, and it’s exactly what she needed. She squeezes her eyes shut and shakes like a leaf in the wind as her own orgasm hits, shuddering against him, everything in her body contracting to the smallest possible throbbing point. 

She arches her back, almost sobbing with the relief of it as he collapses on top of her, panting and winded. 

They just stay like that for a second, like neither of them can believe what they just _did._ Ben grunts, pulling out of her, rolling off and looking at the ceiling, his expression awestruck, his body relaxed in a way she’s never seen it. Rey holds her breath.

When he pulls her into his arms, it feels so nice. So right. He strokes her hair, he brushes his fingers up her arm, calls her his good, good girl and she basks in the feeling of being safe and small and good and his. 

Just for a little while. Just for him. 

Just for now. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About ten MILLION points go to PoetHrotsvitha for lending me her smut expertise in writing this scene. Legitimately this is so much hotter because she helped me out, and we're gonna write a fic together one day because it was so fun and collaborative. I'M SPEAKING THAT INTO EXISTENCE. I'M MANIFESTING. Anyway, give her a follow [on Twitter](https://twitter.com/hrotsvitha_g) and definitely [check out her fics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoetHrotsvitha/works) if you haven't! (She is maybe best known for [Noli Me Tangere](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11785977/chapters/26577630) but is an INCREDIBLE writer in other fics also.) 
> 
> Also: depending on how the next chapter goes, I may up the chapter count. This is my fun fluff fic right now and I really need the escape :/ 
> 
> I also cannot believe the two beautiful moodboards that came out of the last chapter!!
> 
> Debbie SLAYED ME with this [ hot as HELL moodboard](https://twitter.com/driversputa/status/1248781603318501376) that I'm obsessed with. So good!
> 
> Also [ OutletFangirl is really trying to kill me](https://twitter.com/OutletFangirl/status/1249027514938404866) with this ADORABLE moodboard? It's so sweet and I love it! 
> 
> If you'd like to support my writing, I'd really appreciate a comment or a kudos! Check out [my Twitter account](https://twitter.com/ViWiWrites) for star wars content, memes, and fic updates.


	3. Cinnamon girl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello i updated the chapter count also this chapter is very much doing the sex so heads up there
> 
> on an unrelated note, i'm also going to hell!
> 
> **for a detailed list of the sexy details of this chapter (for content warning purposes!) please check the end note.**

**CHAPTER 3**

He's gone when she wakes up, his side of the bed empty and his sheets tugged straight, like he’d tried to make the bed with her in it. God he’s so uptight. Even after a night of fucking, he wakes up and is right back at it. She’s annoyed about the odd swell of affection below her breastbone at the thought. Rey slips her feet over the side of the bed, stretching luxuriously and not even caring that she's butt ass naked.

She feels relaxed. Steady. Calm. And smug as all hell, if she’s honest.

Walking to his closet, she picks out one of his white button downs, shoving her arms through the sleeve and buttoning it up the front while brushing her nose against the collar to inhale the smell of him. The way that it brushes the tops of her thighs feels downright indecent, more sensual than any lacy lingerie. She leaves the top few buttons undone, wiggling her toes at the idea of grabbing Ben’s attention with a peek of cleavage.

When she walks out of his room, she can hear the sound of his voice coming from his office, which is a big, double-doored room off the kitchen. His low voice carries, though she can't understand anything he's saying. After popping some coffee in the machine, she rinses her face in the kitchen sink and pinches her cheeks, catching her reflection in the window.

She had sex with Ben Solo last night.

Or, perhaps more accurately, Ben Solo _fucked_ her last night. Hard. With enthusiasm and the single-minded focus of an avalanche. He'd called her so many endearments, had looked at her like she was something important and vital. Like she mattered. 

_His good, good girl._

She closes her eyes and takes a steadying breath, nearly jumping when the coffee machine beeps its readiness on the counter behind her. Right. _Right._ She’s got this under control, last night doesn’t have to mean that she needs him or that she’d necessarily agreed to anything. She didn’t make a fool of herself, and she can still reassert herself. Bring them back to where they were before. Just… hopefully with more hot sex than before. Toe-curling, brain-melting hot sex. 

Her father always taught her to “Begin as you mean to proceed,” after all, so she decides that she’s going to bring him a cup of coffee wearing nothing but his white button down. 

Realistically, she knows it could go either way. He’s buttoned up at work, and always was. Serious and dedicated, he won’t be in the mood to play, probably. But then, he’d evidently felt _something_ for her, if the sheer volume of endearments he’d bestowed on her were any indication. 

And besides, the fact that he’s likely to be solemn and focused makes her want to bother him _more_ , not less. 

After she pours two cups into identical pale pink mugs, she pads over to Ben's office and opens the door with her elbow.

He looks up from his position behind the desk, his laptop in front of him and his suit jacket immaculate even though he's taking a call from home. His eyes glance up her body, taking in the coffee, her bedhead, the button-down she's wearing as a poor impersonation of a dress.

His jaw snaps shut with an audible click, and whatever he'd been saying dies on his lips. Rey gives him what she hopes is a harmless, innocent smile. She doesn’t miss the twitch under his eye in response.

_That’s right. Look. Look at what you could’ve had for years if you hadn’t been such a stuck up prick._

“I brought you coffee, Mr. Solo,” she whispers, holding the mug up and _loving_ the way his nostrils flare in displeasure. 

From the computer, she hears Hux's metallic voice come through the speaker. 

"Mr. Solo? You were saying?"

Ben clears his throat, his eyes locked on hers as she takes a few casual steps forward, setting the mug down for him and lounging in the high-backed chair opposite him. It's supposed to be for guests. But then, that's what she is, isn't she? His guest. 

He ignores the coffee she pushes to him, visibly trying to resume his thoughts.

"Ah, yes, I want an initial market report compiled by Thursday if you get the data in time for the Friday release," he says, his voice a little hoarse. "But only include the projections if you can update the training model before then."

"Are you sure?" Hux says on the line. 

Ben seems to focus again, his eyes moving back to the computer as his startled expression returns to annoyance. "If the model is poorly trained then the predictions will be worse than useless.”

Rey puts one foot up on the desk, and then the other, crossing her legs at the ankles and looking him dead in the eye. The shirt rides up. She flexes her toes, forward and back, taking a delicate sip of her coffee. 

Is he wondering if she’s wearing underwear? She isn’t wearing underwear. 

There's a long silence and Ben just looks at her ankles, her legs, the fine mother of pearl buttons that lead his gaze up to the part at her chest, the exposed edges of her breasts.

"Sir?"

"Leave the projections _out_ ," Ben snaps, the deliberate calm somehow telegraphing utter fury. "I have to go."

"But—"

Ben shuts his laptop with a decisive click, and Rey waits for him to get up, to drag her across the table, to press her into the bookshelf and rip her shirt off or … something.

But he doesn't.

He just sits there, eyeing her across the table with his hands steepled in front of him, his eyes dark. Watching her. The silence stretches between them as he takes one deep breath, then two, and Rey has _no_ plan for this. All her usual tricks have taken her here, to exactly this spot, and now she feels like she’s at the end of her leash, waiting to be tugged forward. Or yanked back. 

"Is that," he says, every word precise and clipped in a way that goes straight to her core. "My shirt?" 

She takes another sip, hoping her hands stay steady. "You took my pajamas away. What was I supposed to do?"

His lips twitch. Is he remembering the way he’d yanked his shirt off her body last night? _She’s_ remembering it. 

"Didn’t you bring _clothes,_ Rey?” 

Rey arches a brow. "I have a very cute pink nightgown I could go put on, if you’d like. It’s very short. I have matching stockings, too.” 

He turns his head away, glaring out the window like the view of the forest beyond personally told him that wearing a full suit to work from home is pretentious. He has an odd look in his eyes, and Rey feels herself leaning forward, waiting to see what will _happen._

It's a different gaze than the one from before, when he'd been trying to resist her, trying to keep her at arm's length. Now, his expression looks buried and pensive. Hungry. Where she felt relaxed and centered this morning, he looks the exact opposite, like last night didn’t do anything to sate the roaring thing is inside him that demands to be fed. 

But then, she could be guessing. She doesn't know him that well, does she? Only well enough to know that he takes his gin and tonics with pepper, that he always takes the highway, that he carries an actual handkerchief and will give it to her under the table if she’s about to cry in public. 

"We should talk about last night," he says.

Rey sighs. "Do we have to?"

His nostrils flare as he looks over at her. "Yes, pet, we have to."

The endearment warms, and she feels herself respond to it with a rush like winning a carnival toy. She’s so _pleased._ But she can’t show him that, not when he’s playing it so cagey. 

Rolling her eyes, she moves her legs off the desk to drape them over the arm of the chair instead. 

"Wait, wait, don't tell me," Rey sighs. "You're going to say it was a mistake and that we shouldn't—-"

"Come here," he growls, so low and dangerous that it startles her out of her bored tirade. His eyes are direct and piercing, and Rey knows an order when she hears one. She all but hops over to him, quick and fast with her coffee left abandoned on her side of the desk. 

He barely moves from his place, only pushing his chair back a fraction, so she has to wiggle to get between his spread knees. She gets right in front of him, and even though he's seated and she's standing above him, she still feels nervous somehow. Like all the power in the room is sitting in the chair in front of her.

It gives her a perverse little thrill, makes her a little weak at the knees.

"Did you know what you were doing?" He says. "Was that your plan all along?"

He hasn't given her another order, so she just stands there, her arms behind her back. 

"Yes," she admits. There’s no point in lying, and anyway, she’s not ashamed of it. 

He puts one hand against the side of her thigh, his thumb tracing a lazy line up and down on the sensitive skin. His fingers are warm. But that’s what he’s like, isn’t he? Cold on the outside, hot under the surface. How many years has she spent being desperate to get under his skin?

"Why?" He says. Calm and careful. 

The question stops her for a moment. Why _does_ she want him so badly? 

He’s beautiful, tall and statuesque and endlessly interesting. He’s strong, with muscles that she likes and just the right amount of scowl to make him slightly unapproachable. He scratches some itch for her, some nameless need she has that she can’t quite fill on her own. 

_Let daddy give you what you need._

"Because I thought it would feel good," she whispers. 

"That's not the whole truth."

She twists her mouth. "I already told you that I wanted you. I always liked you. I thought— I figured you could give me something that would... help."

It's the truest sentiment she can come up with, honestly. The sense of pull towards him, the magnetic certainty that if she could get to him, get her fingers in his hair and his dick inside her, that somehow everything would feel better. 

And she'd been right, hadn't she? 

His voice is quiet. "Rey, I'm going to be very honest with you. I think you wanted to fuck me because you don't know how to deal with your anger."

She blinks at him. For a minute, she's startled. Then, she's pissed. 

"Don't preach at me," she snaps, taking a step backwards and bumping awkwardly against his desk, hurt probably out of all proportion to the words. "You're not my therapist."

"You don't _have_ a therapist," Ben says, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair.

"Screw you," she mutters. "How do you even know that?"

He doesn't answer, just sits there, impassive and unmoved. It spikes her annoyance up another notch, making her nearly shake. 

"Look, I know you think you have some window into my psyche because we're—" god, what were they? What were they? "—friends, sort of, but you actually don't know the first thing about how I feel."

He gives her a flat, amused look that only ratchets up the tension inside her. It’s _wrong_ , the way it infuriates her and makes some part of her hindbrain coo with interest at the same time.

“If I were you, I’d be furious. I’d be an angry hellion,” he whispers, his hand moving to the skin of her thigh, splaying across her so easily because his hands are unfairly huge. It’s almost lewd, the way he’s moving his fingers, making her tremble and want him as she wonders how many he would slip inside her if he moved his hand up, just a _little_ bit up. What would it feel like for him to touch her there with his hand?

He keeps talking, his voice low and calm and hypnotizing. Slow and patient like he’s going to keep her here like this forever until she understands what he’s saying, not budge an inch. A solid rock that she can hurl herself against in frustration until she tires herself out and becomes more pliant for him.

“Left alone all your life, then trotted out for show when he needed you? Cut down and made to feel small, helpless?” he whispers, almost reverent even though she can hear the intensity behind it. 

Rey blinks, following the movement of his hand, lulled by his soft words, pacified. 

Yes. That’s what it was like. His hand slides up higher, dipping between her thighs and she lets out an embarrassing little whimper even though he’s not even touching her.

“So helpless, so lonely,” he whispers. “I saw you, like that, every time we met. I could see you trapped in there, dying to get out.” 

She blinks at him, his gaze intense and relentless, a tide of feeling heading her way. Sad. Pain. Anger. Years of being so small, so stifled, so afraid. 

“I wanted you to save me,” she whispers. 

And he gives voice to the second part. The worst part, because he is strong. “Because you couldn’t save yourself.” 

Ben brings his finger up, running it gently across the edges of her lips, only brushing it with a touch that is as light as air. When he looks up into her eyes, though, his expression isn’t soft. It sparks something in her; it’s a different kind of feeling small, this— exciting, heady. The old fear turned directly on its head. The same feeling, but seen from a different angle. 

“Thing is, Rey, I don’t want to save you.” 

He’s looking at her with an expression that is _not_ controlled, not calm, not buttoned up in the least. Something a little desperate in his eyes, a hunger he’s not trying to hide. Had she known it was there? Is this what she’d been dying to coax out of him?

His hand on her thigh turns into something like a grip, ironbound and taught, and he looks into her eyes like he’s trying very hard to teach her something complicated and important. It’s so slow and deliberate that it’s somehow condescending, like she should have known this already and he’s explaining it to her because he’s very patient and she’s his good, good girl— 

Rey whimpers as his hand begins to move, his thumb palming across her folds, feeling the wetness pooling there. 

“Rey, I want to make you _stay_. I want to keep you to myself. I want you so needy for my cock that you never leave my house again,” he murmurs, soft and quiet but no less threatening. “I want to tie you to the bed until you can’t remember a life that wasn’t about being mine, so if you came here for a rescue, you came to the wrong man.”

She inhales sharply. Had she thought she could just waltz in here and control the situation? Did she think that just because he’s seated and she’s standing, that she was the one in control here? She was mistaken. _Badly_ mistaken. 

"Now," he says, one hand reaching around, tugging her even closer so she’s standing between his legs. "You can either get on your knees, or get out of my office. Pick."

She thuds to her knees so fast she sees stars, and he chuckles, twining his fingers in her hair as she stumbles over herself in her haste to undo his belt.

“So eager,” he sighs, pleased pleased pleased— _you pleased him yes he’s happy with you—_ when he yanks a little, she yelps in surprise and her hands still as she looks up at him and his dark eyes. “Too eager. Go slow, pet. Be grateful.”

She nods, undoing his belt as he sits back, watching her as she withdraws his cock from his pants with reverent and shaky hands. She gets her fingers around him and looks up, not moving, waiting for permission.

For a second he just looks at her, impassive and unmoving. Is he going to deny her? Send her away? She’s so eager, so eager to show him that she can give him what he wants, that she could please him. 

He inhales sharply, his hands in her hair, his pupils blow wide. 

“Look at you. On your knees. Not even wearing any paties. Someone needs to teach you some fucking manners,” he grunts, still holding her back, not letting her touch him. 

He wants something, there’s something she’s missing, she’s not good enough, he’s _displeased with her._ He sighs, as if very put out that he needs to spell it out. 

“What do you say, Rey?” 

Her heart leaps to her throat, remembering his hushed words the night before, the way it had made her feel damn near molten. It takes a second to work up to voicing it again, but the rush of endorphins is like nothing else when it tumbles out. 

“Please, daddy?” she whispers.

He groans, pushing on her head so that she takes him in her mouth. He’s big, hot and soft and salty and warm as she laps at him, hesitating before she tries to go too low, take him too far. 

Her toes curl into the soft carpet under her feet as her knees dig into the ground and his chair creaks as he leans back, grunting in pleasure. He keeps his hand on her head, not pressuring her down but reminding her that he _could._ A sweet warning. 

When he closes his eyes and leans his head back, a low “fuck,” slipping out between his lips, Rey hums in satisfaction as she lowers and raises her head, sucking luxuriously, trying to give him the most over the top, obnoxious blowjob she possibly can.

She wants him to remember her not as the frightened girl he knew before, but like _this_ , lewd and in his shirt, on her knees in front of him. She did this to him. She got what she wanted, she got him with his eyes closed and his breath coming fast, she _did this to him._

She tilts her head, opening her mouth a little so his cock pushes gently against the side of her cheek. When he looks at her, she gives him an impish little smile. 

_I got you. Look at me. I won._

His eyes narrow and he looks like he’s about to say something when his phone starts to vibrate on the desk. She expects him to silence it, or maybe to take the call and push her off him. But he tightens his grip on her hair, not enough to hurt, but enough that she holds very still with his cock in her mouth as he reaches over her to grab his phone.

When he answers it with a gruff, “Yes?” she almost chokes out of shock. 

The smirk on his face as he looks down at her should be illegal. The hand in her hair applies gentle pressure, pushing her down on him a little further as he mouths, _Go on, kitten._

She narrows her eyes and glares at him.

_So it’s like that, is it?_

He wants to feel like the boss, does he? Wants her on her knees while he takes a phone call, king of the world, like everything is for him? It’s embarrassing the way that thought makes her wet and squirmy, so to get back at him she picks up the pace, wanting to hear him make noises, wanting to watch him come apart at the seams while he tries to hold it together. Anything to get back at that smug superiority. 

But he doesn’t even look at her. “Yes, that’s right,” he says into the phone. “It’s about time.” 

She bobs her head, sucking her lips in experimentally as Ben carries on a casual conversation, apparently unmoved as his fingers stroke and gentle her scalp, like she’s a pretty pet he’s caressing absently. She daren’t reach down and touch the throbbing ache growing between her legs; somehow, she just _knows_ he wouldn’t want that, and it pisses her off that she cares. He looks at her as she seethes, trying to get to him, to make him crack, but he only smiles, flexing his hips to push himself deeper into her throat when she slows down. 

“Hm, I’m not sure, I’ll ask her later,” he murmurs. “I’m sure she’ll agree. Very agreeable, our Rey.” 

There’s an answering voice on the end of the line. Ben lets out a _hmm_ like he’s thinking about something. “Yes, you can mail it to her here,” he says, making Rey go very still as he keeps up that gentle, relentless stroking of her head. “That’s fine. I’ll make sure she signs it.”

Rey lifts her mouth off his cock, tilting her head to one side but stroking him absently, not really wanting to stop torturing him like this but very curious all the same. What is he talking about? Ben pulls the phone away from his ear and covers it with his hand, his brow quirked.

“Did you need something, sweetheart?”

“What are you talking about?” she hisses. 

Ben arches a brow. “Oh, would you like to speak to him yourself?”

Rey goes white. “Ben—” 

Ben reaches down and lifts her up under her arm, hauling her up so she’s standing before abruptly bending her over the desk, calmly and with great control but nearly knocking the breath out of her all the same. She finds herself bent at the waist, her hands braced against the wood, her cheek flat against the cool surface. 

It’s so unexpected that she cries out, and he pulls the phone away from his face with a scolding, “Hush, baby. Be quiet.” 

“Okay,” she squeaks, feeling Ben running his hands down the length of her back as he gets a knee between her legs, pushing them apart, making her open herself to him. She goes pink all over, and of course he sees _that_ too, just as he sees the way that she has to awkwardly press onto her toes to keep her feet on the ground. 

“You know what, let me grab Rey real quick,” he says, flipping up the hem of the shirt and exposing her naked ass to his view. He reaches down, the phone pressed between his shoulder and his ear as he uses both hands to grip her ass, feeling her up and grinning at her while his cock comes to rest on top of her ass.

Rey squeaks as his hand slips between her thighs, and she moans as he starts to gently press a finger into her, murmuring soft soothing sounds that only leave her wound ever tighter. 

“There she is, I’ve got her,” Ben says, his voice tight. “Tim, I’m going to hand the phone to Rey. I’m sure she can answer any questions you might have for her.” 

Rey stiffens, but Ben keeps a hand on the small of her back as he slides the phone down and presses it into her palm, one brow arched, his finger lazily pushing in and out of her with a rhythm that is just short of being totally distracting. When she takes it, clutching it far away from her mouth so she can stare back at him in shock, he only smiles at her with that same smug, calm smirk that makes her want to scream.

_He’s got you right where he wants you, he’s backed you into a corner, why won’t he touch me more, why won’t he fuck me—_

“Well?” Ben says, as Rey just sits there, exposed to his wandering hands as the lawyer waits politely on the end of the line. “Answer the phone.”

It feels as though the instructions filter through her brain from very far away. Rey swallows, and lifts the phone to her ear. 

“Hello, this is R-Rey,” she says, biting back on a yip as she feels him gently push a second finger in with the first one, moving slowly in and out with a lewd, wet sound as her body does everything it possibly can to tell him how badly she wants him. 

The brisk voice on the line says, “Good afternoon, Miss Palpatine. My name is Tim Stevenson, with the law offices of Johson, Holdo, and Tano? Mr. Solo gave me a call the other day about an affidavit of inheritance. He said you didn’t understand it and wanted me to look it over.”

Rey blinks, her thoughts skittering in her brain like marbles loose on a tile floor. He called a lawyer for her? Because she had an idle question about a form? The thought warms her momentarily, touched. 

But when she looks back to give him a wondering smile he just smacks her _hard_ on the ass and growls, “Pay attention to the nice man on the phone.”

She bites back on a whimper. “Yes, thank you,” Rey says, her voice unsteady but not _so_ entirely squeaky as to be indecent. 

“It’s no trouble,” the man says. “I’ve had a look over it and it all seems to be quite in order. The assets in question—”

Rey whimpers as Ben puts in a third finger, pushing in and out with maddening slowness in a way that makes her wriggle, wanting to bring her legs together to trap his fingers inside her. But if she adjusts her feet even an inch he smacks her on the ass again and nudges her legs apart even wider. If he pushes any further her knees are going to give out. They might give out anyway. 

“Behave,” Ben hisses, as the man on the line finishes his thought. “—seem to be perfectly in order, though you’ll want to get the estate manager to check on their registration. There are a few dicey cases where antique, unregistered cars are taxed slightly differently depending on the age of the registration. It’s a grandfather clause issue, since these cars are antiques.”

Rey nods, as if the man on the line can hear her. “Right, sure.” 

Ben curves his fingers and Rey bites down on her lips hard, feeling her legs spasm and her toes curl as the sparks of pleasure begin to race through her. 

The man on the phone keeps talking, but Ben’s fingers feel so good that she lets the phone slide out of her fingers, bringing her cheek down onto the wood and arching her back, pushing back against his hand, trying to fuck herself on his fingers. Hoping that a sheer show of desperation will make him increase the pace.

His voice is a low murmur, but everything in her is focused on it hard enough that the rest of the world recedes into background noise. “Greedy thing. I should keep you here, tie your little wrists to the desk for when I need something pretty to play with. Wouldn’t you like that?”

On the phone, the staticky drone of the lawyer’s voice goes still. It’s her turn to talk. Panicked, she picks the phone up, fumbling it on hazy, uncooperative fingers. Turning her head she looks pleadingly back at Ben.

She whines as he withdraws his fingers, licking them. “Alright, sweetness, had enough?”

“Please,” she whispers, barely audible. 

“Miss Palpatine?” says the voice on the phone. 

Ben leans over her, which brings his cock maddeningly close. Instead of giving her what she desperately wants, he just reaches down and takes the phone from her, pulling it up to his ear as he grinds his erection lazily against her. 

“Thank you, Tim. That’s great.” He lines his cock up with her entrance but doesn’t push into her, and she whines and shakes, fingers curling against the wood of the desk, thighs nearly cramping from the effort of keeping still. 

_I was good, I was so good, I was so good for you–_

“Uh huh. Yeah. Okay. I’ll make sure she does. Thanks, Tim.”

And then he hangs up and pushes his cock into her in one smooth, powerful stroke that has her gasping, pressed between his body and the desk, nowhere to go as he pushes all the way in, growling, “ _Good girl.”_

“You jerk,” she gasps as he bottoms out, lifting her feet off the ground. “You bastard _,_ you—” but she cuts off, the feeling of fullness so deep and satisfying as it mixes with the sting on her skin and the light soreness from their tumbling around last night. It’s like a good stretch mixed with a static shock and a sexual thrill that has her moaning.

For his part, Ben doesn’t say a damn thing, just leans over her, pressing her into the wood with his body as he rocks his cock into her, grunting with an exertion that sends her jerking forward with each thrust, thighs digging into the edge of the desk, as she cries out in pleasure. 

“So good for me, taking your calls in daddy’s office,” he grunts, punctuating it with a series of rapid thrusts that make her forget to hate him, forget to be embarrassed. “So good when you let me take care of you,” he grunts. 

She pants and whines at the feel of him stretching her out, the way her feet dangle, the way anyone in their backyard could see them if they looked through his office window. 

“Ben,” she hiccups, toes curling as he adjusts the angle, making her whimper. “So _deep._ ”

“Shh, you can take it, don’t fuss,” he murmurs, gentling his hands down her back. “Let go.”

She keens as he begins to pick up his movements. It should hurt, the pace he’s setting. But all she can feel is the desk and his body, every part of her pressed against him and his furniture in his house, and it feels like she’s losing herself in him.

He’s over taking her, smothering her, and it should frighten her how much she welcomes it. 

_I want to make you stay._

“Good girl,” he croons, bending over, pinning her with his hand across her shoulder blades, holding her steady so he can fuck into her with greater precision until her head is empty, no thoughts except that it feels good when he’s touching her, that when she comes she’s going to _cry_ , that she wants him to hold her tighter, that she’ll do whatever he wants. 

She goes boneless, yielding and pliant, letting him fuck her like she’s a _doll,_ and he moans into her ear, biting the web between neck and shoulder blade, licking it, grunting into her skin, his voice unsteady as his breathing starts to catch. “That’s it, baby, like that, I’m going to take such good care of you, that’s it, come on my cock, pet, that’s my girl—”

She cries out as he hits just the right spot, biting his hand as he brings it up to clutch her jaw, to hold her just where he wants her as her orgasm hits her, sending her feet twitching uselessly in the air. She can barely see the desk or the bland modern art on the opposite wall, everything blurred except the concentrated sensation of _Ben_ and roaring pleasure and the sensation of being thoroughly, deliciously used. 

He groans, pounding into her one last time, spilling inside her as his mouth finds the back of her neck, kissing and gentling and gasping something incoherent and pleased. 

Her eyes are pricking with tears, something nameless and deep swimming in her chest. It’s cathartic, like a runner’s high or maybe just a regular high. 

Apparently, emotions are something that have to be fucked out of her. By him, specifically. God knows that no one else has ever reduced her to this. She’s worth millions of dollars. She could go anywhere. Do anything. And she _will,_ so why does this feel better than any of that? Being small and helpless and controlled by some asshole with a bad attitude and a huge dick and warm hands and a mouth built for kissing her? 

But there’s not really any point wondering, and anyway her thoughts are very far away. Ben is the only thing that’s close, hot and warm and _heavy._ She isn’t going anywhere, and he must know that, because he pulls out of her with a grunt of satisfaction. 

Once again, Rey is the only one who’s naked. She lifts herself off the desk, getting to her feet with her back to him as she dizzily adjusts to reality.

Ben sits down in his chair as Rey tugs the white dress shirt back over her ass, turning around with pink cheeks. She feels cowed, somehow, but satisfied, too. 

Ben’s expression is smug as hell. “Anything else I can do for you, sweetheart?” 

This time she does not need to be reminded. “No, thank you, sir.”

“Good. Take the coffee cups when you leave.”

“Yes,” she squeaks, too dazed to protest. Some of his come is slipping down her inner thigh, sticky and indecent. 

He gives her ass one last little slap, very 1950’s as he sends her on her way. “And don’t let me catch you without panties in the office again.”

He doesn’t even look at her. She’s _dismissed._ He opens his laptop and she has to stop herself from throwing something at his beautiful face because he’s just going back to work like nothing happened. 

It’s not that she wanted him to take her in his arms like last time, exactly. But she didn’t _not_ want him to, either. She leaves, unsure of herself and needing a shower after all that sweat and mess. He’s already making another call by the time the door shuts. 

* * *

Ben works late that night, and she cooks dinner after she finishes her own business for the day, stir frying some rice with chopped veggies and a glass of white wine. His house is _still_ cold enough to require the use of thick socks and a sweater, and Rey wonders if he’s doing it on purpose. She adjusted the thermostat three times, and every time it mysteriously dropped back down to 69 degrees. 

Ass. 

So she cooks with one of those enormous white couch blankets, not even caring that she might get cooking oil on it. This is what he gets for keeping her shivering and cold all day while he works in his nice warm office with his ridiculously big hands and—

She stops herself, shaking her head as she turns off the burner and plates the stir fry. Is she getting a little addicted? They’ve only had sex twice, but even so, he’s basically all she’s thought about today. How he’s so close in his office, and yet so impossibly remote. 

Dinner is the perfect excuse to intrude on him. She’ll bring him some food and just… see what happens. When she opens his office door twenty minutes later with his plate of food and the white blanket draped over her shoulders, he looks up with a warning look in his eyes. 

“Rey, I’m working, baby,” he says. “I can’t—” then he looks at her hands. “Did you… cook?”

“Yeah,” she says, sheepish and trying not to look like she’s up to something. “I thought you might be hungry. I already ate, but maybe you’re hungry.”

She shuts the door behind her, dressed in pale purple pajama pants and an oversized white t-shirt. He watches her like he thinks she’s scheming something, which… fair. 

He looks at her, brow furrowed. “Thank you,” he says, sounding nonplussed.

She crosses to him without being invited, setting the plate and fork in front of him with a little _ta daaah_ that is very excessive for the underwhelming stir-fry in front of him. But he looks up at her from his big leather chair, his tie loosened after the day, and gives her a little smile as he clicks his laptop shut.

“Thank you,” he says.

Rey leans against his desk, grinning at him as he takes a bite and nods appreciatively at the food. 

“Don’t get used to it,” she teases.

For a second he pauses, looking up at her with something a little unsteady in his eyes. It makes her grin falter. It makes her hands tense. A whole new kind of wanting fills his eyes. 

She wants to reach out and fix his collar, undo his tie, brush her hands through his hair. _I could take such good care of you,_ she wants to say. 

He turns back to the food, his hand twitching at his side. Rey pulls the blanket a little tighter around her shoulders, and neither of them say anything. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I once again am thanking PoetHrotsvitha for the beta read on this scene. I would die for you, and so on, etc. Please give her a follow [on Twitter](https://twitter.com/hrotsvitha_g) and definitely [check out her fics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoetHrotsvitha/works) if you haven't! 
> 
> If you'd like to support my writing, the best way to do that is to leave a kudos or a comment! You can also check out [my Twitter account](https://twitter.com/ViWiWrites) for star wars content, memes, and fic updates.
> 
> THANKS EVERYONE FOR BEING SO HORNY ON MAIN WITH ME
> 
> SEX CONTENT:  
> hordnt dog ben solo teaches rey the following commands: come, sit, and stay  
> she gives him head and he has his hands in her hair (no gagging)  
> they have sex with rey bent over the desk  
> they're on the phone with ben's lawyer, who is oblivious to ben fingering rey while they talk  
> (that's only for a little bit and they hang up before they actually have sex)  
> there is fingering also  
> they bang and both of them get off :D
> 
> **If there's ever anything I can tag for you, please let me know in the comments or in a twitter DM!**


	4. Hope is a dangerous thing

That night, Rey climbs into her own bed, tired but not exactly sleepy. She can’t stop thinking about the way it had felt to sit next to him, eating food at his desk. The way he’d looked at her and smiled with that fond little crinkle in his eyes. 

She’s not a domestic person. Never was. But something about him makes her want to curl into a ball and snooze in a sunbeam at his feet. He’d let her, too. He’d look at her fondly and bring her a blanket for her bare feet and maybe say something like, “Don’t stay up so late,” and she would know that what he meant was “I care about you, I think about you, you are not an afterthought.”

For a minute she’s almost disturbed at how his very presence seems to sedate and calm her, lull and coax her out of herself. Is it possible to be addicted to a person?

It would be easier if she thought he wouldn’t like it if she spent the day quiet as a kitten, docile and within easy grabbing distance. Almost as much as he likes it when she gets under his skin. _Almost._

She turns over, pulling the duvet up to her chin and stuffing a pillow between her knees, surrounded by soft, downy fluff on all sides. The bed smells good, like cotton and fabric softener, and she wonders if he’s thinking of her. 

She knows the answer to that question, too.

He’s always thinking of her.

Stretching a little, she decides that she’ll get out of the house tomorrow. Go get a facial at that cute little spa on the water; the one with the blueberry tarts and the rosewater. Maybe a trip to that little lingerie store next door. Just a treat. It feels like weeks since she’s left the house, even though it’s only been a few days. 

Her real life— far from the quiet, soothing world of blankets and sex that Ben has made for her— hasn’t gone anywhere, and there’s a small avalanche of discomfort in her very near future. Canady emailed her this evening to let her know that they’re appointing Pryde as the new CEO, of course. The position of CEO will suit him. He can be just as creepy as always, only now he’ll have a private jet to boot. God, she’s going to need a severely corseted dress just to keep her upright at the celebration for his position. And a stiff drink. 

Ben will be her date. Or, if he denies, she’ll see if Poe will go with her and do her damnedest to make Ben regret denying her. 

Yes. A day out. That’ll be the ticket. Ben probably needs a break from her, anyway. And, if she’s honest, she should probably remind her brain that her life extends beyond the white walls of Ben’s house. It’s a little unsettling, just how easy it is to forget that. 

_If I had you, I would be worse than patronizing. I would be controlling and jealous. I would tie you up and keep you in my bed for days._

Rey squirms. Just dirty talk. Just foreplay. It’s not like he _meant_ it. Not really. 

_Are you sure?_

Rey scowls at the traitorous little thought, trying to be severe with herself even as something in her chest goes warm and blushing, as if Ben was saying it to her again right now. 

This isn’t the time for romantic delusions; Ben is being nice, and fucking her because he _likes_ fucking her. It’s not that deep. She’ll get a new place at the start of the month and they’ll go back to seeing each other at the occasional formal event and then… 

That thought makes her feel gloomy in a way that is very bad. 

To take her mind off things, she shoots Poe and Rose a quick text inviting them for a day out tomorrow.

Rose sends her a text directly, which is weird. 

> **Hey, have you seen the news?**

Rey grunts, putting her phone face down on the duvet. Rose is sweet, but Rey has a firm “none of my business” policy when it comes to news coverage about her father’s death. Her phone vibrates again, but Rey resolutely does not look. 

She doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to think about it.

It’s no good. She gets up, pulling on a silk robe over her pj pants. Two minutes later and she’s padding downstairs, the air still except for the hum of appliances and the faint gleam of cool, LED strip lights inset tastefully into the built-ins. His house feels like a spaceship, and not for the first time, she wonders if he gets lonely, here all by himself.

The night outside is a rich, blue black, shining through the silhouettes of the trees. The moon hangs shyly overhead as she passes through the architectural house, silent as a ghost. When her father had been alive, she’d spent plenty of nights like this, pacing through the dark, restless and trying to find a quiet place to read or hide or escape. It never worked. His house is sterile in exactly the right way. Like a hospital, but for rich, bossy businessmen. 

The sound of the television brings her to the living room, which is dark except for the television. Sprawled out on the couch with a glass of amber liquid is Ben Solo, his head lolled back and his eyes closed. He doesn’t usually drink liquor; he must have had a hard day.

Love Is Blind is playing softly on the TV.

Rey stares. He looks… disheveled, his button down open at the neck, his lips parted. His phone is facedown on the couch, like maybe he sat down to take a call and just never got up again. 

She bites back a smile. He looks so _harmless_ , sitting there. 

Quiet as she can, she crosses to him and gently pries the glass from his fingers, setting it on the coffee table and turning off the screen before grabbing a blanket from the edge of the couch. 

She drapes it over him, taking special care to tuck it in at the edges where the cold air might get in. When she’s about to leave, he makes a gruff, throaty noise, rousing with a noise of muted alarm.

“Rey? You okay baby?” 

The endearment warms her, and she has to take a minute at how good he makes her feel. Normal. Like this is a normal thing, and not an unhealthy side effect of a personal tragedy. It’s insanity to lean into it, but she does. 

“Shh,” she whispers, sitting next to him on the couch. Tentatively, she cards her fingers through his dark hair. He grunts in pleasure, his eyes closed. 

“Feels good,” he sighs. And then he reaches out and pulls her to his side in one sweeping movement, lifting up the blankets and tucking her under them. “It’s late.” 

His tone is a sleepy imitation of a scold, like _she’s_ the one who fell asleep on the couch watching reality television. He’s warm and solid behind her, his great body a wall of heat and muscle as he tucks her against him. Pressed between his arm and his chest, she uses his bicep for a pillow.

“I know,” she whispers, biting back a small smile. 

He grunts, and she assumes he’s accepted her apology. They stay like that long enough for Rey to start to feel drowsy in that deep, slow way that dreams encroach. It’s like a tide coming in. 

The sound of his voice, soft and gruff, rouses her a little. 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles. For a second she thinks he must be talking in his sleep. 

“Sorry for what?” 

“I should’ve held you.”

“After… your office?” she whispers.

“Before, after, always. I don’t know. All the time.” 

She turns her face slightly, bringing her mouth in contact with his skin. As gently as she can, she kisses him there, trembling with a vibrating sense of wholeness, and rightness, and safety.

“It’s okay,” she whispers. 

He nuzzles into her neck, and they don’t say anything else.

* * *

The next morning she wakes up in his bed, propped on her side with his arm heavy over her shoulder. He sleeps like a dead person, his body still and rigid, his breathing slow to the point of being almost undetectable. 

Blinking back sleep, she wonders when they ended up here. He must have carried her here sometime during the night. The thought of that is pleasant, imagining him being so gentle with her. So sweet.

Then with no warning at all, her drowsy thoughts turn towards yesterday, bent over his desk, moaning his name— 

That’s not going to lead _anywhere_ productive, she chides herself. But it doesn’t matter, she just drifts back to thinking about him again, body heating with each detail that her mind supplies. It’s hard not to, caged in as she is by his body. All she can smell, hear, feel, and touch is him. If she opened her lips, she’s sure even the air would taste like him.

King of his own little kingdom, all the way out here. 

Shifting a little, she feels Ben stir as she tries to sit up. His arms tighten around her as she tries to squirm out. She whines in protest, but he is immovable. 

“Ben, I’m hot,” she whines. “You’re like a thousand degrees.”

Jesus, no wonder he keeps the house so cold. But instead of letting her squirm out of his arms, he only tightens his grip, pulling her closer and nuzzling into her neck with the faint scratch of stubble on sensitive skin.

He kisses her neck with careless, messy kisses, making her protest and then giggle as he wakes up and mumbles into her neck. He’s shirtless, and the feeling of his skin on hers is like satin. Dimly, through her grogginess, she’s annoyed she hadn’t been there to watch him take his shirt off.

“Ben,” she whispers, poking his arm. “I have to get up.”

“No, you don’t,” he says flatly.

“I’m going into town,” she sighs, stretching out. 

Ben smells like skin and man and warm. “Why?” 

“Because I need to run some errands,” she says airily. Ben isn’t exactly a huge fan of Poe Dameron, ever since Rey brought him as her date for a stuffy charity auction. Jealous brute. She purposefully doesn’t examine the fondness in that thought.

“I’ll have Hux fetch them for you,” Ben says, his voice final and decisive as he returns to kissing her neck. He says it with such finality that for a minute Rey thinks the matter is just settled. And then—

“Wait, no, I’m going myself,” she murmurs. “Don’t worry, I’ll take my car.”

He sits up a little, resting his head on his hand as he lazily brings a palm up to cup her breast, gently stroking her through the thin fabric as he makes little, growly displeased noises. “I think you need more rest.”

“All we _do_ is rest,” Rey says, but there’s no real venom in the words. Hard to feel anything but drowsy sweetness with his hand sending sparkles under her skin. 

“Have you considered that I might not _let_ you go?” Ben says, his mouth pressed right into the skin of her neck. His voice is a low purr, and so dangerous even though it’s as soft as fleece on bare skin.

“Considered it, but I immediately rejected the idea,” Rey says, not at all concerned. She starts to scoot down the bed a little, trying to find his groin so she can torment him a little for trapping her here like this. “Because I plan on asking very, very nicely.” 

“Naughty thing,” he says. But his hand inches lower, sliding down to her hips, lifting her up with a little jerk and pressing her back against him so she’s flush against his cock. He’s already hard, and she smirks. She did that. That’s for _her._

She arches her back a little, letting her feet tangle with his, shifting so she’s rubbing against him slowly, sweetly. 

“Rey,” he says, voice low and rich with warning. 

But she just hums a little smile into the air. “Yes, sir?” 

“God, you know what you’re doing to me, don’t you?”

She _does_ , loving the way that just a few jerks can get him hard like this. His hands tighten on her hips, and she feels his fingers slipping under the elastic of her pj pants. 

“Squirm and pout all you like. You’re not going anywhere,” he grunts, pushing the waistband down with a short, sharp jerk. “I have other plans for you.” 

Rey feels herself flush from head to toe, because once again he has taken the spirit of what she wanted and dialed it up a notch, keeping her guessing even as he gives her the exact thing she asked for. 

“Haven’t I been good?” She whispers, loving the little groan he makes when he realizes that she’s not wearing underwear. He slides a finger to her cunt, barely meeting any resistance, and begins to gently stroke her as he breathes into her skin.

“No, you haven’t.” 

“Mmm,” she moans, feeling moisture pooling between her legs as he starts warming her up, his own erection pressing into her back through the soft fabric of his pajamas. “Lots of people to see. Maybe I’ll go into town. See—” she hiccups as he gets the rhythm right, her thighs tightening as it sends ripples of pleasure through her. “—see an old friend.”

She’s egging him on. Pressing his buttons on purpose. But it _works._

“That's not going to work for me,” he says gruffly. And then he pushes her onto her front, pinning her there with one thigh, leaving her immobile and disorientingly pleased about it. There’s a rustle as she hears him push his own pajama bottoms off in a swift movement. 

Then his hands go to her hips and he lifts her up, her ass in the air as the blankets slide off, the cold air shocking on her skin. She’s feels like she’s radiating heat, flushed all over, pinned down and half dressed in his bed, and it’s not even seven AM and —

“If you think I’m going to let you out of my sight for five fucking minutes,” he grunts, and she feels the nudge of his cock at her opening, and an embarrassing little moan slips through her teeth as he pushes into her, slow and deliberate and overfull and so, so satisfying. “— When I could keep you here, moaning for my cock—”

She turns her face away from the window, needing the shade because everything feels oversaturated, blown out and vivid in the bright light and the deep, blunt goodness of him fucking slowly into her first thing in the morning.

“Ben,” she gasps, losing touch with her words as he fills her slowly, deliberately with his cock. It makes her toes curl as the delicious feeling of her advantage slipping away fills her body. He takes control of her so easily, draws a satin trap around her limbs until she’s dozy and pliant. 

“Do I need to remind you of your _boundaries,_ little thing?” 

_Yes, yes, yes—_

“I can leave,” she hiccups into the sheets, defiant in spite of herself, offering up that little bit of resistance, trusting that he will not budge an inch. 

“Of course you can,” he hushes, leaning over her, draping himself across her as his cock sinks home. He kisses the place between her shoulder blades as she squirms and gasps at how deep he can go at this angle. He’s so _big_ it feels almost indecent. “But you’re not going anywhere, are you?” 

“Going to— going to—” she mumbles as a horrible, desperate need creeps up her throat. He’s not moving, he needs to move, he’s ruining everything, if she doesn’t get more of this friction she’s going to die. She’s going to become so hot that she burns up into nothing more than frustrated arousal and the need for the delicious pressure of him inside her. Which is what he _wants._

She squirms, clenching her toes, beating her feet against the bed, trying to shift but he just chuckles, smug in the way a conqueror must feel. His arms feel like a steel trap around her. God, he’s such an asshole. 

“You’re going to stay right here, aren’t you sweetness? Stuffed full of my cock and crying for more?”

“God, I _hate_ it when you make me wait,” she keens. 

His voice is ragged. “I’ll keep you here forever, I swear to god, Rey. Say it. Say you won’t go.” 

“Yes, I’ll stay,” she whispers, hating how easy it was to make that promise, hating how much she means it. 

He moans, like she’d said something intensely erotic. And then — thank fuck — he pulls his cock out and slams it back into her. He doesn’t hold back, but sets a brisk, steady pace as he folds over her, the force of his thrusting pushing her forward, sliding them across the silk until Ben has to bring a hand up to brace against the headboard. The snapping movements of his hips make her gasp, shameless and loud in the quiet air. 

“Jesus, look at you,” Ben says, his own voice unsteady. “This is where you belong, begging for my dick, _my_ cock inside you, my hands on your hips— god you look so fucking hot.” 

He fucks her with a need that makes his hands shake, and Rey feels every inch of it, keening as he adjusts the angle and depth. There isn’t any part of her that isn’t open to him, and she brings a hand to her clit and starts to rub there, too, desperate for the swelling waves of pleasure in her body to crest.

“Ben,” she whines. She hardly sounds like herself, high-pitched and needy, begging with just his name. What is _happening_ to her? 

He puts his mouth on her neck and sucks _,_ and she’s too lost to the feeling of his hands on her to even object. She pushes back against him, craning her neck, trying to take him as deep as she can. 

“I’m going to take good care of you, baby,” he whispers, his voice hoarse as he thrusts impossibly faster. “You’re going to come on my cock, and it’s going to be _me_ that you feel dripping down your thighs, and I am never letting you go, even if I have to tie you to this bed—”

He cuts off, groaning, and she clenches as hard as she can around him, wanting to get him off, wanting him to feel her as tightly as she’s feeling him. She feels loose-limbed and so attuned to her body, the way that her thighs are shaking, the erratic staccato of her heartbeat. 

He rams into her, hard enough that it would hurt if she wasn’t so absurdly wet, if she wasn’t so gone on the sound of him wanting her, _needing_ her to stay with him. Maybe it’s just sex, but her lust addled mind only hears that he wants her to stay, that he cares about her, and oh god, she _loves_ him. She loves him, and she’s going to ruin everything—

“Ben,” she keens again, bucking against him, her panic subsumed by desire as he fucks into her, pulling her neck back, kissing her until she can’t see straight. 

“Don’t think about it, don’t,” he grunts. “Just take it. Just take my cock like a good girl.” 

“Ben, I’m — it’s—” 

The words don’t come out. She whimpers, sweat beading down her neck as he pulls her up and back against his chest, one hand holding her up and the other braced against the headboard. She can’t even move, there is nowhere to go, nowhere but him. 

“Shh, let me make it simple for you. Say that you’re mine. _Say_ it.” 

“Yes,” she agrees, nearly blind with it, the heat and the sex and the wanting. “Yours.” 

Ben makes it so very, very simple. 

“Don’t stop,” she says, feeling the pitch of their fucking change as her orgasm looms. “Ben I need this, I need this, _please._ ” 

“Rey— _always,_ I—”

Rey gives into it, pliant as spring grass in his hands, morning light spilling across the bed, his kisses up her neck. She bites back on a sob as her orgasm hits, spiralling through her body with a force that whites out her brain, her body intent on giving Ben what he so clearly wants.

He fucks her through every moment of it, relentless, with a growled, “That’s it, that’s my girl, you make me so fucking crazy, Rey, I— fuck—” as his orgasm hits, all she can hear is the sound of her own heartbeat, a fevered pounding in her head. 

_I love, I love, I love, I love._

They slide together back onto the bed, Ben blowing out a long, immensely satisfied breath as he pulls out and tucks their bodies together, ignoring the mess that they’ve made. 

Ben looks quiet and calm as he nuzzles into her neck. But he would, wouldn’t he? He got his way. Again. And he got her to _agree_ to it. It’s hard to be troubled by just how much she will apparently give up to stay with him when she’s so limp, so sleepy and relaxed. 

“Shh,” Ben says, gentling her body, running his fingers through his hair. 

Ben is Ben. Bossy, unyielding Ben. Ben who made her promise to stay, to not leave him, Ben who called her his girl.

“I meant it, you know.”

“W-what? Which part?” she says, too fucked out to talk right.

“I don’t want you going into town. Cancel your thing. Stay here.”

She could argue with him. She could ask him _why_ he doesn’t want her to do that. But maybe it would be better if she didn’t question it too much. Maybe it would be better if she just gave into him, dozed contentedly like this. 

“Hmmm,” she murmurs, snuggling into him. 

“Rey, I mean it,” he says. 

There’s real force behind his words, like this matters to him. An uneasy prickle climbs up her spin, but his fingers trace a circle on her shoulder. 

His voice hitches. "Baby. Please?" 

“M’kay, I’ll stay home,” she mumbles, feeling drowsy as she gives into him. 

She doesn’t try to get up, this time. Instead, she lets him hold her, cradled against him, his gentle breathing the only sound as he brushes her hair back and closes his eyes.

He falls into a contented doze, just like that. But his fingers are still laced in hers, like he thinks she might try and get up and leave him. It makes her heart twist in a way that is like pain, but not quite. 

* * *

Ben is quiet as she makes a cup of coffee, leaning against the island in his dark pajama pants and no shirt, his fucked up hair splaying in all directions. He has his work face on again, scowling into the screen like it suggested generic-brand hair products are acceptable.

Rey takes a sip of her coffee, happy just to be near him. 

After a few more idle sips, she sighs and pads off, headed for the stairs. If she’s going to cancel on Poe and Rose, she needs to text them now before they worry. Guiltily, she thinks about Rose’s text from last night.

Maybe something’s really wrong? 

“Where are you going?” Ben says. 

Something in his voice stops her. When she turns around, there’s weird tension on his face. It unnerves her.

“To get my phone. Is something wrong?”

His jaw works, like he’s chewing on something. “Would you do something for me?” 

“Yes,” she says, very simply. Because if she’s honest, she’d probably do just about anything he asked of her. 

“Would you come to bed with me? Just— just let me eat you out, let me make you feel good. Leave your phone upstairs and just...”

He looks miserable. 

“Ben, what’s wrong?” Rey says, taking a few steps towards him. “You’re freaking me out.”

He sighs. “Do you want to hear it from me, or do you want me to just show you the newspaper?” 

Rey blinks at him, feeling that warm feeling from earlier rapidly slipping away. When she finds the courage to answer, her voice is quiet but determined. 

“I want to hear it from you.”

He does that tense thing with his jaw again, and she knows this must be really bad. “Sit down.” 

“No,” Rey says, feeling the flighty stirrings of panic in her chest. 

He grits his teeth, but doesn’t argue. “The Post ran an article about you.” 

Rey goes very still, icy dread creeping up her spine.

“What… what about me, specifically?”

But of course she already knows. It was inevitable. 

Ben does not do her the discourtesy of mincing his words. 

“They ran a story about your dad’s life, and there’s a big section on you. They have their facts straight. It’s bad, Rey. They mention your illegitimacy, how you were removed by CPS from your mother at six, raised in that godawful mansion. Christ,” he says, his voice breaking off into bitterness. “The story is so saccharinely cheerful, and they paint your dad to be this—” 

“A loving father? A family man?”

Her voice is thick with anger. 

Ben just flips over a newspaper to expose a headline.

> **_PALPATINE REMEMBERED: ENTREPRENEUR, PHILANTHROPIST, FAMILY MAN_ **

Her history wasn’t exactly a secret, but seeing it on the front of the society pages, a picture of him with her as a small child— it makes her blood boil and the color drain from her face. 

Who _wouldn’t_ think that a wealthy businessman would make a better father than a dirt poor cocktail waitress? Of course that’s the angle they took. But even if they had their facts right, the whole story is a _lie._

They separated Rey from her mother the second the paternity test was complete. Charged her mom with possession over one bag of weed and spent the next decade telling everyone that she’d been an addict living on the street. It was bullshit, but Rey didn’t know that until she was old enough to look into it. But by that point her mother was _dead_ and Rey was 16, and all the light went out of her life for years and years until—

“Ben,” she says, her lip trembling as all that grief comes back to her now. There is no sex to distract her, no tease to amuse herself with, no biting remark to stem the tide of unfelt loss that surges over her now. “Help.” 

He pulls her into his arms, cradling her, holding her up as the dam breaks and Rey sobs, and sobs, and sobs. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be very dirty and trash but then I realized that this story has a plot. Oops. 
> 
> I once again am desperately grateful PoetHrotsvitha for the beta read on this scene. Where would I be without you, my soul beats for you, you make me go "AHHHH" and so on and so forth et cetera. 
> 
> Please give her a follow [on Twitter](https://twitter.com/hrotsvitha_g) and definitely [check out her fics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoetHrotsvitha/works) if you haven't! 
> 
> ALSO BEHOLD, THESE MAGNIFICENT PIECES OF ART  
> The lovely and talented Meeda made [this stunning illustration of Rey tormenting Ben in the first chapter in his bathroom](https://twitter.com/MeedaWrites/status/1254195578151374848) and it's so so great!  
> Also Elyse did this beautiful piece from the last chapter,[Rey in Ben's shirt looking for trouble](https://twitter.com/starsoftragedy/status/1251901987567702017) which I just so cool. I love it, Elyse, thank you!!!
> 
> If you'd like to support my writing, I'd really appreciate a comment or a kudos! Check out [my Twitter account](https://twitter.com/ViWiWrites) for star wars content, memes, and fic updates.


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